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John Degen
John Degen (born 1965) is a Canadian novelist, poet, freelance writer and arts administrator.

Degen was born in Toronto, Canada. His father, Julius Degen is an immigrant from northern Germany. His mother, Margaret Degen (Stephenson) was born in Toronto. Degen spent his school years in Aurora, Ontario. He attended the University of Ottawa beginning in 1984, and graduated from the University of Toronto in 1990 (BA English) and 1993 (MA English). He has lived in Toronto, London (England), and Ottawa, Ontario. He currently lives in Etobicoke, Ontario.

Degen's journalism has appeared widely across Canada and North America including in the Globe & Mail, The National Post, The Ottawa Citizen, THIS Magazine, NOW Magazine, eye weekly, Write Magazine, The Nation, Books in Canada, and Quill & Quire. His poetry, essays, reviews and interviews have been published in various literary journals, magazines and anthologies, including The Walrus, The Globe and Mail, Taddle Creek, The Fiddlehead, Arc, and the Antigonish Review. Between 1993 and 1998, Degen published and edited ink magazine, a hand-made, national literary magazine credited with launching the publishing careers of many now established Canadian poets and authors. In 2006, Degen's first novel, The Uninvited Guest, was shortlisted for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. He is a past winner of the Okanagan Prize for fiction, and a finalist for the CBC Literary Award for Poetry.

Degen maintains a popular blog, The Book Room blog at http://ww.johndegen.com, where he writes about creator copyright issues. He is the host and producer of The Book Room audio podcast series.

Employment:
Degen has worked for the Canadian Publishers Council (Project Coordinator 1990), Magazines Canada (Communications Manager, 2000), and the Professional Writers Association of Canada (Executive Director, 2003). He is currently Literature Officer for the Ontario Arts Council.

Volunteer Work:
Degen was Chair of the National Poetry Month Committee for the League of Canadian Poets in 2004, Chair of the Board for THIS Magazine in 2005, and Chair of the Book and Periodical Council Board of Directors in 2007. He has served on numerous volunteer committees and sub-committees within the Canadian writing and publishing community, including the Author Committee of the Writers’ Trust, and the Creators’ Copyright Coalition.

Poetry
Animal Life in Bucharest (Pedlar Press, 2000) Killing Things (Pedlar Press, 2002)

Novels
The Uninvited Guest (Nightwood Editions, 2006)