 Ondaatje and his wife Linda Spalding, a novelist and academic, co-edit "Brick, A Literary Journal", with Michael Redhill, Michael Helm, and Esta Spalding.In 1988, Ondaatje was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) and two years later a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.Ondaatje served as a founding member of the board of trustees of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry from 2000 to 2018.