Gary Barwin (born 1964 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a Canadian writer, composer, and performer who lives in Hamilton, Ontario. He writes in a range of genres including poetry, fiction, visual and concrete poetry, music for live performers and computers, text & sound works, and writing for children and young adults. His music and writing have been presented in Canada, the US, Japan, and Europe.
Barwin was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and emigrated to Ottawa, Ontario in the early 70s. He graduated from York University with a BFA in Music and a BA in Creative Writing in 1985 where he studied writing with bpNichol, Frank Davey and music with David Mott, James Tenney, and Trichy Sankaran. Barwin received a PhD in Music Composition from SUNY at Buffalo in 1995. Barwin taught music at Hillfield Strathallan College from 2001-2010. He also has taught creative writing in the Certificate in Writing Program at McMaster University. In addition to his many books, he is the author of numerous chapbooks, and pamphlets, many from his own serif of nottingham editions. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies.
He lives in Hamilton, Ontario with his wife and three children where he directs the Niagara Regional Rhyme Gland Laboratory for the National Rhyme Institute.
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He was the recipient of the 1998 Artist Award from the KM Hunter Foundation. Seeing Stars, a YA novel, was a 2001 finalist for the CLA YA book of the year, and was nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award. In 2010, Barwin was a co-winner (with Sandra Ridley) of the bpNichol Chapbook Award for his book Inverting the Deer (serif of nottingham, 2009).