Laurie Block is a poet, playwright and storyteller. He was born in Winnipeg and now lives in Brandon, Manitoba. His previous work includes a chapbook of poetry, Governing Bodies, and a bilingual collection of poems, Foreign Graces/Bendiciones Ajenas, based on his experiences in South America. He is also the author of a full-length play, The Tomato King, produced by Theatre Projects of Manitoba in 1997, and a short piece, Pop!  His short story, While the Librarian Sleeps, won the 2003 Prairie Fire fiction contest and, most recently, The National Magazine Award Gold Medal for fiction. Time Out of Mind is the winner of the inaugural Lansdowne Poetry Prize.

Brian Brett has been writing and publishing since the late 1960s. He has also been involved in an editorial capacity with several publishing firms including the Governor-General Award winning Blackfish Press.

In the early seventies, he began working as a freelance journalist and critic for various publications and newspapers across the country. His journalism has appeared in almost every major newspaper in Canada, and his essays in most of the major magazines.

Brian Brett inaugurated the B.C. Poetry-In-The-Schools program, introducing children in schools to world poetry. He has been a member of literary organizations ranging from P.E.N. International to the Writer’s Union of Canada amongst others. In May 2005 Brian Brett became the Chair of The Writer’s Union of Canada.

His last collection of poems/memoir, Uproar’s Your Only Music, was a Globe and Mail top 100 book of the year. His recent memoir/history, Trauma Farm, is the winner of the 2009 Writers’ Trust of Canada Non-Fiction Prize, was long-listed for the BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, nominated for the BC Booksellers’ Choice Award, nominated for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, and nominated for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Prize. It is a Canadian best seller, an Amazon top 100 book of 2009, a Globe and Mail top 100 book for 2009, and a Times Literary Supplement top 100 book for 2009!

Brian Brett currently lives on a farm with his family on Salt Spring Island, B.C., where he cultivates his garden and creates ceramic forms.