Bio

Brendan McLeod has been Vancouver’s SLAM poetry Champion, the Canadian SLAM poetry champion, and finished second at the 2005 World SLAM championships, held in Holland. As a novelist, he beat out over 500 original entries to win the 2006 International 3 Day Novel Contest for his book, “The Convictions of Leonard McKinley“. He has performed all over the world, at over 200 poetry readings, and is a touring member of The Fugitives spoken word and music troupe. He has an MA in Philosophy from the University of Waterloo.

Praise for Brendan’s Performances

“Canada’s top SLAM spieler” – CBC

“This poet is an ambitious performer” – Edmonton Sun, Edmonton

“McLeod’s observational sentiment is spot on” – Uptown Magazine, Winnipeg

“One of the most intelligent and dynamic performance poets on the globe.” – Chair, Spoken Word Canada

“Brendan McLeod is one of the best performers I have ever seen – powerful, moving, funny – absolutely brilliant!” Director, Off the Shelf Festival of Writing and Reading, Sheffield, UK

“McLeod’s plot works away with quiet efficiency…a very personal addendum to the scariest of biblical parables.” – Globe and Mail

“(McLeod) has built a solid reputation as one of the country’s best spoken word performers. It turns out his command of language is just as strong on paper, however, as Leonard McKinley is an equally funny, disturbing and poignant tale of a young man struggling to reconcile his strong Christian faith with his increasingly dark impulses.” – Monday Magazine, Victoria

“Leonard is pretty creepy but the novel is good” – Somisguided.com

“Brendan McLeod presents us with a protagonist who is at once mesmerizing and ridiculous, charming and offensive.” – Terence Young, Governor General’s Award Nominee

As a spoken word artist, Brendan McLeod has been Vancouver’s Grand SLAM poetry Champion (2005), the Canadian SLAM poetry champion (2004), and finished second at the 2004 World SLAM championships, held in Holland. As a novelist, he is the winner of the 2006 International 3 Day Novel Competition for his book, “The Convictions of Leonard McKinley“. As a musician, he is a touring member of The Fugitives, along with Mark Berube and Barbara Adler.

He has toured extensively all over the world, and has been a featured performer at over forty European events, including the Rotterdam International Poetry Festival (2005), the Writing on the Wall Festival (Liverpool, 2006), the Runnymede International Literature Festival (2006), and as a member of The Fugitives at the Dylan Thomas Festival (Swansea, 2005) the German National SLAM Championships (Leipzig, 2005), the Vienna Literary Festival (2006), the Off the Shelf Festival (2006, UK), and the Isle of Barra Poetry Festival (Scotland, 2005).

He has also been a featured reader at many prestigious European reading series, including Big Word (Edinburgh), Brixtongue (London), Hammer and Tongue (Oxford), Mouthtrap Cabaret (Reading), Speak & Spin (Munich), and Wicked Words (Leeds). He has also performed at the University of Bangor, Wales, and as a guest facilitator for a workshop on the Harlem Renaissance at the University of Bamburg, Germany.

In Canada, he has been a featured main stage performer at the Saskatchewan Festival of Words (2005), South Country Fair (2005, 06), the Festival Voix D’Ameriques (2006), and a featured performer at the West Coast Poetry Festival (2004), and Word on the Street (2004, 05). He has toured cross-Canada twice, and has featured at reading series and performed solo in every province from Quebec to Nova Scotia. He was also a member of the 2004 and 2005 Vancouver poetry SLAM teams, the former of which finished first at the 2004 CSW.

In America, he has performed at the National Poetry Slam (St. Louis, 2004; Albuquerque, 2005), and featured in readings and SLAMs in Bellingham, Berkeley, Hollywood, Long Beach, Orange, Santa Monica, Seattle, Baltimore, Washington, Boston, New York, and New Jersey.

As a musician he led Ontario’s seven piece funk band Eden Express, the Vancouver based folk trio Bernie, and is currently a member of the spoken-word/music troupe The Fugitives .

Brendan has also performed at high schools and universities across the world, including as a guest facilitator for a workshop on the Harlem Renaissance at the University of Bamburg, Germany, and as a youth poetry facilitator at the Runnymede International Poetry Festival in England. He is a member of the ‘Poetry in Schools’ project in Vancouver.

He has a BA (Honors with Distinction) in Philosophy from the University of Victoria (2001), and an MA in Philosophy from the University of Waterloo (2002). Excerpts from his first novel were published in the academic journal Sophia (May, 2001).

Brendan is a high energy storyteller equally at home with social and political commentary, family histrionics, surreal love poems, obscure adventure stories, and powerful personal stories. He runs the gamut of performance poetry, making him an effective live performer and an artist well equipped for collaboration.

2004 Canadian SLAM poetry champion
2006 International 3 Day Novel Champion
2005 World SLAM poetry runner-up
2005 Vancouver SLAM poetry champion
2006 Shortlisted for KickStart screenplay grant