The SWG mourns the passing of friend and long-time member, Gail Bowen.
A novelist, playwright, educator and mentor, Bowen created one of the country’s most enduring fictional detectives in Joanne Kilbourn Shreve—a widowed mother, political analyst and university professor whose encounters with crime unfolded against the political, cultural and domestic life of Saskatchewan.
Bowen began teaching at the University of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College in Saskatoon before moving with her family to Regina in 1979. There, she taught at the University of Regina and the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, now the First Nations University of Canada. She eventually became an associate professor and served as head of its English department.
Bowen also wrote for the stage and radio. Her plays included Dancing in Poppies, Beauty and the Beast, The Tree and an adaptation of Peter Pan, all produced at Regina’s Globe Theatre. CBC broadcasts her adaptation of Doctor Dolittle and her Charlie D radio mysteries, which she later expanded into a series of novellas. She also contributed to CBC Radio, locally and nationally, as an arts columnist and political commentator.
Her achievements brought her some of the highest honours in Canadian crime writing. A Colder Kind of Death won the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel. Reader’s Digest named her Canada’s Best Mystery Novelist in 2008, and Crime Writers of Canada presented her with the Derrick Murdoch Award in 2009 and its Grand Master Award in 2018. That same year, she was invested with the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, the province’s highest honour.
Celebration of Gail's Life will be held at St. Paul’s Cathedral, 1861 McIntyre Street, Regina, SK on Friday, July 3, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. She will be interred at the St. Paul's Columbarium. In lieu of purchased flowers, please bring two or three flowers from your garden. Gail loved gardens and gardening and loved touring the beautiful yards that her friends and family have cultivated.
Please share your memories of Gail with the family at memoriesofgailbowen@gmail.com.
Gail's full obituary can be read here: tributearchive.com/obituaries/48848615/gail-dianne-bowen