About
Susan Musgrave has published more than 30 books and has received awards in six categories — poetry, novels, non-fiction, food writing, editing and books for children. Her home is near Masset on Haida Gwaii.
Recent awards include the B.C. Civil Liberties Association 50th Anniversary Award for contributions in the area of the arts, for writing. She was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Pandora Poetry Collective in Vancouver, August 2010, and in 2012 she won the Spirit Bear Award — the tribute recognizes the significance of a vital and enduring contribution to the poetry of the Pacific Northwest. “Her artistic presence over the past 40 years has helped create who we are,” wrote Patrick Lane. “She is as important to us as Emily Carr.”
In the fall of 2014 she was awarded the Matt Cohen Award in Celebration of a Writing Life from the Writers’ Trust. In May, 2020, she won third prize in the Fish Poetry Prize (Ireland), judged by Billy Collins.
Her latest book, a food memoir or “a love story with recipes,” is A Taste of Haida Gwaii: Food Gathering and Feasting at the Edge of the World. This won the Bill Duthie Bookseller’s Choice Award (B.C. Book Awards, 2016) and gold (first prize) in the Regional/Cultural Cookbooks category of the 2016 Taste Canada Awards.
Susan has been involved in the teaching of creative writing both as a writer-in-residence at universities, libraries and festivals across Canada and in the United Kingdom and as an instructor at the University of Waterloo and Camosun College. She is a previous chair of the Writers Union of Canada, and is on the advisory committee of the York University / Writer’s Development Trust Electronic Writers in Residence program.