Bert Archer

Who is Bert Archer?

Bert Archer is a Canadian author, journalist, travel writer, essayist and critic.

Archer was born in Montreal and lived in Calgary and Vancouver before attending St. Michael's University School in Victoria, British Columbia, the University of St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto, and Trinity College, Dublin. He was editor of his college's arts journal, The Grammateion in his second undergraduate year, and as editor-in-chief of The Mike, the college newspaper, a year later. The year after that, he was president of the Ontario region of the Canadian University Press, North America's oldest national student organization.

While still in school he worked as an assistant to editor David Colbert at Harper & Collins Canada. In 1994, he was hired as an editorial assistant by Quill & Quire, Canada's national book trade magazine. Two years later, as review editor, Archer was pressured to resign after writing an essay in the Financial Post which some considered derogatory to certain elements in the Canadian publishing industry, specifically, the small presses. He was subsequently hired as a columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest circulation newspaper, to review books published by small Canadian publishers.