Bren Simmers | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1976 (age 48–49) |
| Citizenship | Canada |
Bren Simmers is a Canadian poet and writer. She is the author of four collections of poetry: Night Gears (Wolsak and Wynn 2010), [1] Hastings-Sunrise (Nightwood Editions 2015), [2] If, When (Gaspereau Press 2021), [3] and The Work (Gaspereau Press, 2024). [4] She is also the author of Pivot Point (Gaspereau Press 2019), [5] a lyrical account of a nine-day wilderness canoe trip through the Bowron Lakes canoe circuit in British Columbia.
Born in Vancouver, she studied writing at the University of Victoria and has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She is the winner of 2022 CBC Poetry Prize [6] for Spell World Backwards, a collection of poems inspired by how Alzheimer's affects language. Her book Hastings-Sunrise was a finalist for the 2015 City of Vancouver Book Award. [7] She is also the winner of an Arc Poetry Magazine Poem of the Year Award, [8] a finalist for The Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, [9] and was a finalist for the 2006 Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award. She lives on Prince Edward Island.
The Work was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry at the 2024 Governor General's Awards. [10]
In 2025 she won the Pat Lowther Award from the League of Canadian Poets for The Work, [11] and was named as the recipient of the Latner Griffin Writers' Trust Poetry Prize by the Writers' Trust of Canada for her overall body of work. [12]
