Awards for Theatre
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
1989 Chalmers Award for Best New Play • 1990 Governor General’s Award for Drama • 1991 Canadian Authors’ Association Award for Drama
Anything that Moves
2000 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Musical (three Dora Awards in total)
Awards for Fiction
Fall on Your Knees
1996 Giller Prize Finalist • 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book • 1997 Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction • 1998 Canadian Booksellers Association (Libris) Award for Fiction Book of the Year • 1998 People’s Choice Award
The Way the Crow Flies
2003 Giller Prize Finalist
Other Honours and Recognitions
Fall on Your Knees – Oprah’s Book Club selection (2002)
The Way the Crow Flies – ABC’s Good Morning America Book Club selection
1987 Genie Award nomination for I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing
1990 Gemini Award for Best Performance by a Supporting Actress in Where the Spirit Lives (1989)
Honorary Doctorate of Humanities – University of Windsor
2019 Officer of the Order of Canada
2025–26 Walker Cultural Leader – Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts
Mordecai Richler Reading Room Writer in Residence – Concordia University
Richler Writer in Residence – McGill University