Barrie Phillip Nichol, known as bpNichol, was a Canadian poet, writer, sound poet, editor, Creative Writing teacher at York University in Toronto and grOnk/Ganglia Press publisher. His body of work encompasses poetry, children's books, television scripts, novels, short fiction, computer texts, and sound poetry. His love of language and writing, evident in his many accomplishments, continues to be carried forward by many.
George Harry Bowering, is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet, historian, and biographer. He was the first Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate.
Brian Brett was a Canadian poet, journalist, editor and novelist. Brett wrote and published extensively, starting in the late 1960s, and he worked as an editor for several publishing firms, including the Governor-General's Award-winning Blackfish Press. He also wrote a three-part memoir of his life in British Columbia.
George Elliott Clarke, is a Canadian poet, playwright and literary critic who served as the Poet Laureate of Toronto from 2012 to 2015, and as the 2016–2017 Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. His work is known largely for its use of a vast range of literary and artistic traditions, its lush physicality and its bold political substance. One of Canada's most illustrious poets, Clarke is also known for chronicling the experience and history of the Black Canadian communities of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating a cultural geography that he has coined "Africadia."
Frankland Wilmot Davey, FRSC is a Canadian poet and scholar.
Daphne Marlatt, born Buckle, CM, is a Canadian poet and novelist who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Richard Stevenson was a Canadian teacher and poet. Stevenson taught English at Lethbridge College in Lethbridge, Alberta, and also taught in Nigeria for a few years.
Earle Alfred Birney was a Canadian poet and novelist, who twice won the Governor General's Award, Canada's top literary honour, for his poetry.
Hogan's Alley was the local, unofficial name for Park Lane, an alley that ran through the southwestern corner of Strathcona in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The alley was located between Union and Prior (north–south) and ran from approximately Main Street to Jackson Avenue (west–east). The area was ethnically diverse, populated by Black, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, and Indigenous residents during the first six decades of the twentieth century.
Lisa Robertson is a Canadian poet, essayist and translator. She lives in France.
Frederick James Wah, OC, is a Canadian poet, novelist, scholar and former Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate.
George Anthony Stanley is a Canadian poet associated with the San Francisco Renaissance in his early years. In 1971 he became a resident of British Columbia.
Jamie Reid was a Canadian writer, activist, and arts organizer. He was born in Timmins, Ontario and came of age on the west coast of Canada.
George McWhirter is an Irish-Canadian writer, translator, editor, teacher and Vancouver's first Poet Laureate.
Joseph Rosenblatt was a Canadian poet who lived in Qualicum Beach, British Columbia. He won Canada's Governor-General's Award and British Columbia's B.C. Book Prize for poetry. He was also a talented artist, whose "line drawings, paintings, and sketches often illustrate his own and other poets’ books of poetry."
Fred Booker (1939–2008) was a Canadian author and singer-songwriter. Booker immigrated to Canada in 1966 from the United States and became a notable member of Vancouver's music and literary scenes. His intimately personal songs were often characterized by his versatile acoustic guitar riffs and resonating vibrato voice. Amongst Booker's influences were Black American poetry and spoken word, gospel, folk and jazz music, some of which he accredited to his experience growing up in a Baptist church and hearing the blues and gospel songs that were often sung in his childhood home. His experience as a black man in Vancouver and the "Pacific Rain Forest of British Columbia" became the subject of much of his poetry and songwriting, where he reflected on things like his time travelling and touring Canada, his hardships amidst the starkly contrasting class structure of Vancouver, and his continuous admiration for the mystery of both his urban and rural surroundings.
Meredith Quartermain, née Yearsley is a Canadian poet, novelist and story writer who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Renée Sarojini Saklikar is an Indian-born Canadian lawyer, poet and author. Raised in New Westminster in Greater Vancouver, she married Adrian Dix. Rob Taylor of Prism International wrote in 2013 that "If you've spent much time in Vancouver's literary community, you've probably heard of, or run into, Renée Saklikar."
Gillian Jerome is a Canadian poet, essayist, editor and instructor. She won the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2009 and the ReLit Award for Poetry in 2010. Jerome is a co-founder of Canadian Women In Literary Arts (CWILA), and also serves as the poetry editor for Geist. She is a lecturer in literature at the University of British Columbia and also runs writing workshops at the Post 750 in downtown Vancouver.
Juliane Okot Bitek, also known as Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, is a Kenyan-born Ugandan-raised diasporic writer and academic, who lives, studies and works in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She is perhaps best-known for her poetry book 100 Days, a reflection on the 100-day 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsi and Hutu people were killed. She has been a contributor to several anthologies, including in 2019 New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent, edited by Margaret Busby.
