The CBC Radio serializations of Mitchell's Jake & the Kid captivated audiences prior to television and enjoyed ratings as high as those for the radio broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada. Through the hundreds of episodes, Mitchell became a household name. The author, himself both a broadcaster and academic, analyses the scripts, their themes, social issues and production approaches and places Mitchell's radio 'literature' in the context of their Prairie and literary roots. In so doing, he defines the radio dramatic genre and maintains that, even though folksy and anecdotal in nature, the Jake episodes became an early proving ground for Mitchell's novels.

Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, Alan J. Yates moved to Canada in his late teens, where he pursued a career in journalism and broadcasting, much of it with the CBC. He also pursued an academic path on the side, with graduate degrees in Communications from McGill University in Montreal and taught Communications at the University of Ottawa. Now retired, he lives in Ottawa.

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