Susan Musgrave

Susan Musgrave (born March 12, 1951) is a Canadian poet and children's writer. She was born in Santa Cruz, California, to Canadian parents, and currently lives in British Columbia, dividing her time between Sidney and Haida Gwaii. She has been nominated several times for Canada's Governor General literary awards.

Musgrave left school at 14, and had her first works published at 16. In 1986, at a wedding held in prison, she married Stephen Reid, a writer, convicted bank robber and former member of the infamous band of thieves known as the Stopwatch Gang. Their relationship was chronicled in 1999 in the CBC series The Fifth Estate.

Musgrave defended Al Purdy's collection of poetry, Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets: Selected Poems, 1962–1996, in Canada Reads 2006, a nationally broadcast radio "battle of the books" competition.

She currently teaches creative writing in the University of British Columbia's optional residency Master of Fine Arts program.

Musgrave's archives are held by the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections at McMaster University.

Her book Exculpatory Lilies was shortlisted for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Poetry

 * Songs of the Sea-Witch — 1970
 * Entrance of the Celebrant — 1972
 * Grave-Dirt and Selected Strawberries — 1973
 * Gullband Thought Measles was a Happy Ending — 1974
 * The Impstone — 1976
 * Selected Strawberries and Other Poems — 1977
 * Kiskatinaw Songs — 1978
 * Becky Swan's Book — 1978
 * A Man to Marry, A Man to Bury — 1979 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
 * Tarts and Muggers — 1982
 * Right through the Heart — 1982
 * Cocktails at the Mausoleum — 1985
 * The Embalmer's Art — 1991
 * Forcing the Narcissus — 1994
 * Things That Keep and Do Not Change — 1999
 * What the Small Day Cannot Hold: Collected Poems 1970-1985 — 2000
 * When the World Is Not Our Home: Selected Poems 1985-2000 — 2009
 * Obituary of Light: the Sangan River Meditations — 2009
 * Origami Dove — 2011
 * Exculpatory Lilies - 2022

Fiction

 * The Charcoal Burners — 1980 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
 * The Dancing Chicken — 1987
 * Cargo of Orchids — 2000
 * Given — 2012

Non-fiction

 * Great Musgrave — 1989
 * Musgrave Landing: Musings on the Writing Life — 1994
 * You're in Canada Now... Motherfucker: A Memoir of Sorts — 2005
 * A Taste of Haida Gwaii: Food Gathering and Feasting at the Edge of the World — 2015

Children's literature

 * Gullband — 1980
 * Hag Head — 1980
 * Kestrel and Leonardo — 1990
 * Dreams Are More Real than Bathtubs — 1998
 * ''Kiss, Tickle, Cuddle, Hug" — 2012
 * Love You More — 2012

Compiled or edited by Musgrave

 * Because You Loved Being a Stranger: 55 Poets Celebrate Patrick Lane — 1994
 * Nerves Out Loud: Critical Moments in the Lives of Seven Teen Girls — 2001
 * You Be Me: Friendship in the Lives of Teen Girls — 2002
 * The Fed Anthology — 2003
 * Certain Things About My Mother: Daughters Speak — 2003
 * Perfectly Secret: The Hidden Lives of Seven Teen Girls — 2004

Song lyrics

 * "Ode to the missing but not forgotten" — 2006 (performed by the guitarist Brad Prevedoros and singer Amber Smith)