Bruce Hunter (poet)

Bruce Hunter (poet)

Bruce Hunter (born 1952) is a Canadian poet, novelist and teacher.

Bruce was born in Calgary, Alberta and worked as a gardener, labourer, equipment operator and Zamboni driver before returning to school in his late twenties. He studied creative writing at the Banff School of Fine Arts with W.O. Mitchell and film and literature at York University. For the past twenty-two years, he has taught English and Liberal Studies at Seneca College. He has also taught creative writing at the Banff Centre and York University as well as giving numerous writing seminars and workshops to groups across Canada.

He is the author of five books, three of them poetry, as well as a collection of linked short stories and a novel. In 2010, his sixth book, Two O’Clock Creek – Poems New and Selected will appear from Oolichan Books.

His most recent book, a novel, In the Bear’s House, was awarded as the 2009 Canadian Rockies prize selected from over 100 books from 10 countries at the Banff Mountain Book Festival.

Poems Coming Home From Home(2000), were short-listed for the 1997 CBC/Saturday Night literary competition. This title was also selected as one of the top ten People’s Choice poetry books of 2000, in the company of Lorna Crozier and Don Coles. His linked story collection, Country Music Country, was published in 1996 to both critical and popular acclaim and broadcast on CBC radio. The London Free Press calls Hunter "the Hank Williams of Canadian literature".

In 2002, he was Writer in Residence at the Banff Centre for the Writers’ Guild of Alberta. In 2007, he was Writer in Residence at the Richmond Hill Public Library, in the Greater Toronto Region.