Dave Godfrey

Who is Dave Godfrey?

Dave Godfrey is a Canadian writer and publisher. His novel The New Ancestors won the Governor General's Award for English language fiction in 1970.

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Godfrey was educated at Trinity College at the University of Toronto, Iowa State University, and Stanford University. He taught in Ghana for several years including Adisadel College, Cape Coast from 1963-65 where he was the English and music instructor. He was the founder of the Adisadel Jazz Club, which led to the creation of similar jazz and student pop groups in several Ghanaian secondary schools. He continued his teaching at the University of Toronto and the University of Victoria.

Starting in the late 1970s, he became interested in the cultural side of computer technology, and argued that decentralized data and computer communication were extremely important for art and literature. In 1979 he edited a book on the subject with Douglas Parkhill, Gutenberg two, on the social and political meaning of computer technology, and he wrote The Telidon Book with Ernest Chang, about electronic publishing and video text, and founded a software development company called Softwords, working in that field.