about me
I am an award-winning and bestselling novelist and short story writer from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and the author of the novels UNTHINKABLE (At Bay Press), BOY (Dundurn Press), NOTHING BUT LIFE (Dundurn Press), SAINTS, UNEXPECTED (Invisible Publishing), as well as the short story collection CUT ROAD (Guernica Editions). I am also the creator and co-host of REJECTED CENTRAL, a podcast that seeks to elevate the rejection experience.
Awards & Achievements:
THE KERRY SCHOOLEY BOOK AWARD
THE WHITE PINE AWARD (Nominated)
THE BRISTOL SHORT STORY PRIZE
THE LUSH TRIUMPHANT LITERARY AWARD
THE FIDDLEHEAD BEST SHORT STORY AWARD
THE WRITER MAGAZINE'S "OUR DARKEST HOUR" PRIZE
THE HAMILTON FICTION AWARD (Shortlist)
THE FREDA WALDON FICTION AWARD
THE ALVIN A. LEE CREATIVE NONFICTION AWARD
THE SHORT WORKS PRIZE
and can also be found in such notable publications as
The New Quarterly
subTerrain
The Short Story Advent Calendar
The Fiddlehead
The Writer Magazine
Riddle Fence
Litro Magazine
The Puritan
The Sycamore Review
Prairie Fire Magazine
EVENT Magazine
The Dalhousie Review
Hamilton Magazine
The Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology
The Prairie Journal
The New Guard Literary Review
The Nottingham Review
Urban Graffiti
and elsewhere.
I am grateful to have received numerous Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation grants, Ontario Arts Council Works in Progress grants, and numerous Ontario Arts Council Recommender grants.
I’m also a certified educator with more than a decade of teaching experience, and am eager to help others tell their stories. Click here to see how I can help you tell your story, too!
I’m a grateful and proud member of the LitLive organizing committee. LitLive is Hamilton’s longest-running reading series.
I am a member of The Writers' Union of Canada.
Headshot by Melanie Gillis.
reading at the Vancouver launch for SAINTS, UNEXPECTED
the extended narrative
Brent has spent much of his vertical life telling stories and communicating. In high school he rediscovered the spoken word -- we talk early then spend lifetimes talking, but how often do we really listen to ourselves? -- and used his confidence and comfort with language to embark upon and achieve a diploma in Radio Broadcasting. A brief stint as a low-paid weekend overnight host on a London, Ontario radio station taught him the value of self-editing his spoken words, as well as developing a keen ear for the sound of language.
After a year off, where he traveled through New Zealand and Australia, a pipsqueak of an inner monologue convinced him to go back to school for a degree in English Literature. He used his degree to teach in a private language school in Gwangju, South Korea for a year, but realized quickly that what he wanted to do most was teach literature and write. So, armed with that desire, he settled in the Toronto area and taught English, Creative Writing, Computers, PE, and Drama, at a small, private high school north of the city.
Then he got married, and his world just opened up.
His love of language took him to Kuwait, where he spent four years teaching English, Journalism, and Film at The American International School of Kuwait. He returned to South Korea in 2009 to teach English literature at Seoul Foreign School, the top international school in Korea.
Brent came back to Canada in 2011, and now lives in the Westdale neighbourhood of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada with his wife Rosalee and daughters Nora and Alida. When he's not crafting stories, he reads, runs, husbands, Daddys, coffees, podcasts, and teaches writing to college/university students and other aspiring scribes.
With grateful acknowledgment of granting support from:
