John Barton is a poet, essayist, editor and writing mentor. His twenty-eight books, chapbooks, and anthologies include For the Boy with the Eyes of the Virgin: Selected Poems, Polari, Seminal: The Anthology of Canada’s Gay-Male Poets, The Malahat Review at Fifty, We Are Not Avatars: Essays, Memoirs, Manifestos, The Essential Douglas LePan (2020 eLit Award for Poetry), and Lost Family (2021 Derek Walcott Prize nominee). The recipient of three Archibald Lampman Awards, a CBC Literary Award, and a National Magazine Award, he has served as writer in residence for the Saskatoon Public Library (2008/2009), the University of New Brunswick (2010/2011), and Memorial University of Newfoundland (Fall 2015). Co-editor of Ottawa’s Arc Poetry Magazine (1990–2003) and editor of The Malahat Review (2004–2018), he has published his poems and essays in magazines and anthologies in Australia, Canada, China, India, Romania, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He sits on the advisory board of Grain Magazine and is the guest editor fof Best Canadian Poetry 2023. He has taught or given workshops for the University of Victoria, the Ottawa Public Library, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Ottawa’s Tree Reading Series, Saskatchewan’s Sage Hill Writing Experience, and the Victoria Festival of Authors. Born in Edmonton and raised in Calgary, he lives in Victoria, where he was the city’s poet laureate from 2019 to 2022.