Leo McKay, Jr.

Leo McKay Jr. (born June 19, 1964) is a Canadian novelist and short story writer from Stellarton, Nova Scotia. He also is a periodic contributor to The Globe and Mail. Early life McKay was born and raised in the town of Stellarton, Nova Scotia, where he graduated from Stellarton High School in 1982. He grew up in the small working class Stellarton neighborhood called the Red Row, a neighborhood of hundred-year-old mining company duplexes and a tight-knit community of working-class people. His parents grew up in the same neighborhood. His mother, Georgina Bellick, was the daughter of Polish and Ukrainian immigrants. His father, Leo McKay Sr., who lived in the Red Row until his death in 2011, was a riveter at the railcar factory in nearby Trenton before becoming a career labour leader, social activist, New Democrat politician, and eventually a member of Stellarton Town Council. He studied English at St. Francis Xavier University, French at Laval, Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and Education at Dalhousie. He lived in Asia for four years.