Honorary Prince George Writers

Jay MillAr

Jay MillAr is a writer, editor, publisher, bookseller and environmental research assistant. He is the author of The Ghosts of Jay MillAr (Coach House, 2000), and Mycological Studies (Coach House, 2002), which was shortlisted for the ReLit Poetry Prize. He publishes chapbooks under the imprint BookThug and distributes these titles through Apollinaire’s Bookshoppe—his “imaginary bookstore specializing in publications that no one wants to buy.” His most recent book is from blewointment books of Nightwood and called False Maps for Other Creatures. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Hazel, and their sons, Reid and Cole.

Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley was born in Massachusetts in 1926 and graduated from Black Mountain College where he befriended Charles Olson and edited The Black Mountain Review. Publications include: For Love (1962); Words (1967); Pieces (1969); The Finger (1970); St Martin's (1971); A Day Book (1972); Thirty Things (1974); Away (1976); Later (1978) and Memory Gardens (1986). He held the poetics chair at the State University of NY at Buffalo prior to Charles Bernstein. Creeley came to Prince George to read in the 1970s and has since kept in touch with local writers Barry McKinnon and Ken Belford.

Al Purdy

Al Purdy is one of Canada’s best-known and most-loved poets. His cantankerous persona roamed the country for over four decades, delighting and shocking audiences with his candour and humour. He published thirty-three books of poetry and is best known for his ribald, down-to-earth voice and his representations of distinctively Canadian experiences and landscapes. His poems deal with intimate human emotions across a variety of situations ranging from personal insecurity to human history. His most famous books include The Cariboo Horses (1965), North of Summer(1967), Sex & Death (1973), and Piling Blood (1984). Two major collections of his work have been published: The Collected Poems of Al Purdy (1986) and Beyond Remembering: The Collected Poems of Al Purdy(2000).

George Stanley

George Stanley was born and raised in San Francisco where, in the sixties, he was a member of Jack Spicer's circle. A long time educator in Terrace, BC, Stanley is now retired and living in Vancouver. His books include The Stick, Opening Day, Temporarily, San Francisco's Gone, Gentle Northern Summer, and most recently, A Tall, Serious Girl (San Francisco: Qua Press).

George Bowering

Novelist, poet, editor, professor and historian, George Bowering was recently named the first Poet Laureate of Canada. A native of British Columbia, Bowering has made an outstanding contribution to arts and culture in this province. While he has a prominent international and national profile, his work is inescapably rooted in BC, with stories of growing up in the Okanagan, haunting poems of urban Vancouver, and his innovative treatment of historical B.C. events. Bowering has authored more than 80 books and his work has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese and Romanian. His writing includes books of poetry, fiction, autobiography, biography, collaborations and youth fiction. His award-winning titles include: George Bowering Select, Rocky Mountain Foot, The Gangs of Kosmos, Burning Water, and, His Life: A Poem. In 2001, he retired as a professor at Simon Fraser University where he taught and inspired two generations of young writers. Bowering supports the work of other writers as a generous mentor and literary critic.

Simon Thompson

Simon Thompson, MA, is the English and Writing Instructor at the Terrace Campus of NorthWest community College. He has read in Prince George many times and has adopted Barry McKinnon's printing press that has made many famous Caledonia Writing Series and Gorse Press chapbooks over the years.

Donna Kane

Donna Kane lives and writes in Dawson Creek, BC. Her work has appeared in sub-TERRAIN, Geist, Contemporary Verse 2, and The Malahat Review. She has participated in the Banff Centre for the Arts writing program. Her Hagios Press book, Somewhere, a Fire was published in 2004.

rob mclennan

rob mclennan is a prolific poet, editor, publisher & visual artist. The author of over three dozen poetry chapbooks, he won the 1999 CAA/Air Canada Award for most promising writer (in any genre) in Canada under 30. He has published poetry, fiction & critical work in nearly two hundred publications across Canada, the US, England, Finland, Ireland, Australia, India, & the Czech Republic. He has done dozens of readings across Canada, & in Ireland & the US, including The Ottawa International Writers Festival, The Winnipeg Writers Festival, Via Rail Great Canadian Writers Tour, the University of Maine, & the Galway Arts Center. Recently, rob wrote an essay called "Sex at Thirty-One -- McKinnon, Fawcett, Gold, Stanley, etc." on Poetics.ca about Barry McKinnon and other writers connected to Prince George.

Robert Kroetsch

Robert Kroetsch was born in 1927 in Heisler, Alberta. He attended the University of Alberta and then and U of Iowa. After a stint working on the river boats in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, he eventually taught at S.U.N.Y. Binghamton. Kroetsch then taught writing and literature at the University of Calgary and the University of Manitoba. At the U of M he was mentor to Rob Budde. He now lives in Winnipeg. Kroetsch is internationally know as a poet and novelist. He is also widely acknowledged in Canada for his literary criticism and theory. Kroetsch won the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction with his novel The Studhorse Man.

G.P. Lainsbury

G.P. Lainsbury is an English Instructor & Senior Instructor in the Academic Program at Northern Lights College in Fort St. John. His book, entitled The Carver Chronotype: Inside the Life-World of Raymond Carver's Fiction, argues that "despite having worked primarily in 'minor' genres, Raymond Carver merits consideration as a major American writer." Also, Lainsbury's article "Generation X and the End of History," first published in Essays in Canadian Literature, has been collected in the volume GenXegisis: Essays on Alternative Youth (Sub)Culture. Lainsbury began teaching for NLC in September 1995, and received his PhD in American Literature from Simon Fraser University in1996. As well as teaching courses in literature, film, creative writing and workplace communication, Lainsbury is also Poetry Editor of the journal Textual Studies in Canada, director of the Fort St. John Poetics Research Group and publisher of Cosmodemonic Poetics.

Eden Robinson

Eden Robinson is a Haisla woman who grew up near Kitimat, British Columbia. Her previous collection of stories, Traplines, was awarded the Winifred Holtby Prize for the best first work of fiction by a Commonwealth writer and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and Notable Book of the Year. Monkey Beach, Robinson’s acclaimed first novel, won the B.C. Book Prize for Fiction, was a finalist for the 2000 Giller Prize and was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her newest book Blood Sports will be out soon.

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