John Lent - Biography

Biography

John Lent was born on July 8, 1948, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the son of Harry and Adrienne (Brown) Lent and is one of seven siblings (Susan, Michael, Harry, Francis, Timothy, Mary-Lou). Lent married the painter Jude Clarke in 1981. Educated at the University of Alberta, B.A. (with honors), 1969, M.A., 1971, where he was a student of Sheila Watson, Lent pursued doctoral studies at York University, 1971-75, including field work in British Columbia, on Malcolm Lowry and Spatial Form.

Prior to joining Okanagan College, Lent taught at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, and Notre Dame University College in Nelson, British Columbia. Starting in 1979, he taught creative writing and literature courses at Okanagan College in Vernon, British Columbia. He retired from the position of Dean, North Okanagan Region, Okanagan College, in April 2011. He was influential in the creation of the Ryga Award for Social Responsibility in Canadian Literature, Ryga a Journal of Provocations, the Mackie Lecture and Reading Series, the Kalamalka Press, KIdsWWwrite (a creative writing ezine) and the KIWW Digital Archives, as well as several radio programs and newsprint collaborations such as The Kalamalka Chronicles. John Lent’s participation in and authoring of the opening chapter of the, initially, serialised Kalamalka Chronicles, a community writing project initiated by The Sun Review newspaper and the Kalamalka Institute for Working Writers, emphasises the degree to which he experiments with narrative form and authorship. In this instance, the characters and their opening maneuvers were controlled by Lent, then re-authored and re-plotted by eight other writers. That the ‘contest’ was quite lively and that the newspaper folded after the publication of chapter nine is, perhaps, indicative of a community of writers rather than readers. In addition to these services to the literary arts and promotion of quality writing, Lent has engendered careers in writing through his work as a teacher and as an editor. He was a writer in residence at Sage Hill, Saskatchewan from 2009-2011. Lent reads his work in many cities in Canada, the United States, France, and England. He is a founding member of the Kalamalka Press, the Kalamalka Institute for working writers, and the annual Mackie Lecture and Reading series at Okanagan College. Lent is also a singer/songwriter and played in the roots/jazz trio Lent Fraser Wall.

Lent lives in Vernon, British Columbia, where he has finished revising a novel, The Path to Ardroe, a multi-voiced narrative set in Vernon, Strasbourg and the Scottish highlands, scheduled for publication in Spring 2012. He is also at work on a sequence of essays on consciousness and form, covering, among others, the writings of DeQuincey, Gunnars and Lowry.

Other biographical information is available in Jude Clarke's The Language of Water.