Chris Pannell

Chris Pannell is part of the organizing committee for Hamilton’s annual gritLiT literary festival. He also runs the New Writing Workshop through Hamilton Artists Inc., one of Canada’s leading artist-run centres. He has published three poetry books: Drive (2009), Under Old Stars (2002) and Sorry I Spent Your Poem (1999). He won the Arts Hamilton Poetry Book Award in 2010 for Drive and won the Hamilton & Region Arts Council poetry book award in 1997 for a set of poetry broadsheets entitled Fractures, Subluxations and Dislocations. Before his reading, he will be presented with the 2010 Acorn-Plantos People’s Poetry Award by Jeff Seffinga. In a former life, Pannell was a professional technical writer, editor, and systems analyst. Additionally he has worked as a musician, bus driver, sales person, bird breeder, music archivist, and paperboy for The Globe and Mail. He continues to read the Globe, first thing every morning.