Susan McMaster

Who is Susan McMaster?

Susan McMaster is a Canadian poet, literary editor, spoken word/performance poet, and 2011-12 President of the League of Canadian Poets. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Her recent poetry books are Paper Affair: Poems Selected and New, Pith & Wry: Canadian Poetry, and Crossing Arcs: Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me, which was a finalist for the 2010 Acorn-Plantos People's Poetry Prize, the 2010 Ottawa Book Awards, and the 2010 Archibald Lampman Poetry Prize. She is the author of several wordmusic collections, performance poetry recordings, and scripts; has edited poetry anthologies and series; and was the founding editor of the national feminist and art magazine Branching Out. McMaster was an original member of the intermedia group First Draft, with members including Andrew McClure, Colin Morton, Alrick Huebener, Roberta Huebener, Claude Dupuis, Peter Thomas, and David Parsons. Together, they recorded, published, and performed some 40 times across Canada in the 1980s.

Since 1996, she has been the wordsmith in Geode Music & Poetry, making four spoken word and music recordings with Jennifer Giles on keyboards, Alrick Huebener on bass, Gavin McLintock on sax, and friends, including Dave Broscoe, Jamie Gullikson, Mike Essoudry, Petr Cancura, Mark Molnar, John Higney, Linsey Wellman, Penn Kemp, Colin Morton, and Max Middle. She has performed and recorded with SugarBeat and Geode at 50-plus venues, including the Banff Centre, the National Library, the Kingston Fringe Jazz Festival, Rasputin's, the Blue Skies Music Festival, the Ottawa Folk Festival, the Elora Music Festival, Artscape, WordBeat, Morningside, Go, the National Arts Center Fourth Stage, and the Ottawa International Writers Festival, and has read and performed at festivals and venues in France and Italy.