Stephen Reid (writer)

Stephen Reid (March 13, 1950 – June 12, 2018) was a Canadian criminal and writer, who was a member of the notorious Stopwatch Gang and was also convicted twice of bank robbery. Reid served time in over 20 prisons in Canada and the United States.^[1]

Born in Massey, Ontario, in 1950,^[2] Reid began writing in 1984 while serving a 21-year prison sentence at the Kent Institution in Agassiz, British Columbia. During his first sentence, he submitted a manuscript to Susan Musgrave, then writer-in-residence at the University of Waterloo. Thus developed an ongoing correspondence, and they married in 1986 at Kent. He published his first novel, Jack Rabbit Parole, that year.

Reid was released on full parole in June 1987. He lived with Musgrave and her daughters in Sidney, British Columbia, teaching creative writing at Camosun College and working as a youth counsellor in the Northwest Territories. He became addicted to heroin and cocaine and, in June 1999, committed another bank robbery and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. He received day parole on January 28, 2008.

Reid was the subject of a 2007 National Film Board of Canada documentary film, Inside Time, which was the recipient of a 2008 Golden Sheaf Award for social/political documentary.^[3]

Reid won the 2013 Victoria Book Award for his second work, A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden:Writing from Prison.

Reid died in hospital near his home on Haida Gwaii. His wife said this seemed due to complications of pneumonia and heart failure.^[4]

References

External links

• Stephen Reid bio - Banff Centre Press
• Watch Inside Time at the National Film Board of Canada website