John Lent

John Lent is a Canadian poet and novelist, as well as a college teacher of creative writing and literature. He has published ten books from 1978 to 2012. His book, So It Won't Go Away, was shortlisted for the 2006 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Lent’s fiction and poetry have appeared for years in magazines across Canada, including: The Malahat Review, Event, Dandelion, Grain, The Wascana Review, NeWest Review, Prairie Fire, CV2, New Quarterly, Waves, Matrix, The Fiddlehead, and The Antigonish Review. Lent has read from his work in many cities in Canada, and internationally. Lent has also published critical articles on the work of Malcolm Lowry, Thomas DeQuincey, Wyndham Lewis, Tom Wayman, Kristjana Gunnars, Mavis Gallant, Dennis Brutus and Wilfred Watson.

“My continuing interest,” Lent says, “is the relationship between consciousness and notions of ‘narrative’ in both fiction and poetry. So I’m fascinated by what happens when you take a person in a very ordinary, textured world and the story that surfaces actually mimics the process of awareness that is right at the heart of that world…so it’s this wonderful, crazy mix of subjectivity and things that keeps drawing me to more open, more flexible forms of story. I find that whole process nervy and exciting.”

Lent is also a singer/songwriter and plays in a roots/jazz trio, The Lent/Fraser/Wall Trio, which performs in British Columbia, and has opened for groups as various as Leahey, Chilliwack, Campbell Ryga, Long John Baldry, UHF and others. John Lent lives with his wife, Jude Clarke (painter and writer) in Vernon, British Columbia. Lent is a member of the Writers Union of Canada, SOCAN, the Canadian Songwriters Association, and the Associated Writing Programs (USA).