DAN NEEDLES is the creator of the popular Wingfield Farm plays, full-length stage comedies that have filled theatres across Canada and the United States for more than 3,000 performances since 1984. Wingfield’s Inferno, the sixth in the series of plays starring Rod Beattie, opens at the Stratford Festival in 2005. A 21-part CBC television series, based on the first four plays, aired in 2001. In 2003, With Axe & Flask, a history of fictional Persephone Township, won the Stephen Leacock Medal for humour. A regular columnist for Harrowsmith-Country Life and Country Guide, Dan Needles lives with his wife, Heath, and their four children on a small farm near Collingwood, Ontario.