ABOUT
Susan McCaslin is the author of twenty-one volumes of poetry and seven chapbooks. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in 1984, where her thesis was on the Welsh poet Vernon Watkins, a friend of Dylan Thomas. Susan taught at Douglas College in B.C. in the English and Creative Writing Departments from 1984 to 2007. Her most recent volumes of poetry are Named and Nameless (Inanna Publications, 2025), Field Play (Ekstasis Editions, 2024), Doggerel (Urthona Press, 2024), Consider (Aeolus House, 2023) and Sentient Stones (Raven Chapbooks, 2023). In 2018, Susan co-wrote a book of creative non-fiction with collaborator J.S. Porter titled Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine (Wood Lake, 2018). In 2017, Inanna Publications released her selected poems, Into the Open: Poems New and Selected (Inanna Publications, 2017). She has also written a memoir, Into the Mystic: My Years with Olga (Inanna Publications, 2014). Her poetry book Demeter Goes Skydiving (The University of Alberta Press, 2012) was short-listed for the BC Book Prize (Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize) and the first-place winner of the Alberta Book Publishing Award (Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award) in 2012.
Susan has edited three poetry anthologies, A Matter of Spirit (Ekstasis Editions), Poetry and Spiritual Practice (St. Thomas Poetry Series), and An Avian Alphabet (Barbarian Press). She has also written a volume of essays, Arousing the Spirit (Wood Lake Publishing, 2011).
She resides in Fort Langley, British Columbia, where she initiated the Han Shan Poetry Project as part of a successful campaign to protect a rainforest near the Fraser River.
CANADIAN LITERATURE PROFILE: https://canlit.ca/canlit_authors/susan-mccaslin-2/
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND
Ph.D. English Literature, University of British Columbia, 1984 (Twentieth-Century Poetry & Vernon Watkins)
M.A., English Literature, Simon Fraser University, 1973 (Nineteenth-Century, Poe, Coleridge)
MEMBERSHIPS
Federation of BC Writers, 1985 - present
League of Canadian Poets, 1985 - present
The Writer's Union of Canada, 1995 - present
Thomas Merton Society of Canada, 2001 - present
Susan has edited three poetry anthologies, A Matter of Spirit (Ekstasis Editions), Poetry and Spiritual Practice (St. Thomas Poetry Series), and An Avian Alphabet (Barbarian Press). She has also written a volume of essays, Arousing the Spirit (Wood Lake Publishing, 2011).
She resides in Fort Langley, British Columbia, where she initiated the Han Shan Poetry Project as part of a successful campaign to protect a rainforest near the Fraser River.
CANADIAN LITERATURE PROFILE: https://canlit.ca/canlit_authors/susan-mccaslin-2/
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND
Ph.D. English Literature, University of British Columbia, 1984 (Twentieth-Century Poetry & Vernon Watkins)
M.A., English Literature, Simon Fraser University, 1973 (Nineteenth-Century, Poe, Coleridge)
MEMBERSHIPS
Federation of BC Writers, 1985 - present
League of Canadian Poets, 1985 - present
The Writer's Union of Canada, 1995 - present
Thomas Merton Society of Canada, 2001 - present
