Susan Ioannou

Even though I have published widely in other genres, when asked what kind of writer I am, I always answer first, a poet, and a Canadian one at that. In addition to a few chapbooks, past titles include the lyric poetry collections Clarity Between Clouds and Where the Light Waits, the poetic narrative Coming Home: An Old Love Story, Looking Through Stone (later rsisued as Poems on Geology, Metals, Minerals, and Mining, and Looking for Light. My short fiction has been collected into the book Nine to Ninety: Stories across the generations. Also, I published two children’s novels: A Real Farm Girl and the boys’ adventure The Hidden Valley Mystery. For many years, I was Associate Editor of Cross-Canada Writers’ Magazine, with a column on writing in every issue. My articles, particularly about the craft of writing poetry, have appeared in many Canadian journals, and ultimately were included in my nonfiction collection Holding True: Essays on Being a Writer.

Teaching has been a big part of my writing life. For more than a decade, I led the Toronto Board of Education Continuing Education Department adult Poets’ Workshop, as well a giving workshops for the Ryerson University Literary Society and University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies and serving as a poetry instructor in the latter’s Creating Professionals residential summer course. I’ve even given seminars on editing poetry for the Editors’ Association of Canada. What I learned through my own reading, writing, and teaching came together as the nonfiction book A Magical Clockwork: The Art of Writing the Poem, and was extended for several years into an online poetry writing course.

So, I’ve done a lot of writing around writing, about what it involves and ways to approach it—particularly writing poetry. Often, people have the impression that you sit down, you’re inspired, and you dash off a story or article, but I find writing even a short poem a very slow and painstaking process.

Besides publication, my efforts have received some recognition in the form of awards. Finalist in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the League of Canadian Poets, and the Toronto Star writing competitions, I have also won a Norma Epstein Foundation poetry award, Media Club of Canada nonfiction Memorial Award, and the Okanagan Short Fiction Award. As a Canada Council reader, I have had the pleasure of performing my work around Toronto, as well as at its internationally recognized reading venue Harbourfront.

There is much information about me on the Web. A good starting point is the University of Toronto Library Canadian Poets site, where my page is located at

http://canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca/ioannou/index.htm