SHORT AND SNAPPY BIO (OK, SO NOT SO SNAPPY…OR SHORT)
Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of 31 books including Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy which won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award and BImaginging Imagining Essay on Language, Identity and Infinity. His national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates won the Leacock Medal for Humour and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was long listed for Canada Reads. The Most Charming Creatures (ECW Press, Fall 2022) received the Canadian Jewish Literary Award and Duck Eats Yeast, Quacks, Explodes; Man Loses Eye, with Lillian Nećakov, appeared in 2023. Shortlisted for the League of Canadian Poets’ Spoken Word Award, and a finalist for the National Magazine Awards (Poetry), he is four-time recipient of Hamilton Book of the Year, has also received the Hamilton Arts Award for Literature and has co-won the bpNichol Chapbook Award and the K.M. Hunter Arts Award. He was one of the judges for the 2017 CBC Poetry Prize. Be:longings, a public art sculpture created with Tor Lukasik-Foss and Simon Foss is permantly installed in Hamilton’s Churchill Park.
A PhD in music composition, Barwin has been Writer-in-Residence at University of Toronto (Scarborough), Laurier, Western University, McMaster University and the Hamilton Public Library, Hillfield Strathallan College, Sheridan College and Young Voices E-Writer-in-Residence at the Toronto Public Library. He has taught creative writing at a number of colleges and universities, to at-risk youth in Hamilton through the ArtForms program and currently mentors through the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive. His writing has been published in hundreds of magazine and journals internationally—from Readers Digest to Granta and Poetry to the Walrus—and his writing, music, media works and visuals have been presented and broadcast internationally. Though born in Northern Ireland to South African parents of Ashenazi descent, Barwin lives in Hamilton, Ontario. He is married with three adult children and lives in Hamilton, Ontario and has never been Governor of Louisiana. garybarwin.com
OK BARWIN, WE DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME, GIVE US 75 WORDS
Gary Barwin is a writer, musician and multimedia artist, the author of 31 books including Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy which won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award. His national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates won the Leacock Medal for Humour and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was long listed for Canada Reads. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.
A LONG-WINDED SORT OF UP-TO-DATE CV ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE
(it’s mysteriously here–just scroll below and—voilà—the link shall be revealed)