Barry Dempster was born in Toronto, Ontario and educated in child psychology. He is the author of a novel, a children's book, two volumes of short stories and twelve collections of poetry. He has been nominated for the Governor General's Award for literature twice, for his first book, Fables for Isolated Men (Guernica) most recently for The Burning Alphabet (Brick Books) which won the Canadian Authors Association Chalmers Award for poetry. In 2010 he was a finalist for the Ontario Premier's Award of Excellence in the Arts. From 1990 to 1997, he was Poetry and Reviews Editor for Poetry Canada. He is the senior acquisitions editor with Brick Books where he has discovered and edited many of Canada's finest emerging poets and many of Canada's best poets. He has been on the faculty at The Banff Centre as mentor for the Writing Studio, Wired Writing and Writing with Styles programs and has been the Writer-in-Residence at the Richmond Hill Public Library twice.