Trussler, Michael

Michael Trussler writes poetry, creative non-fiction, short stories and literary criticism. His most recent books are The Sunday Book (creative non-fiction, Palimpsest Press) and a collection of poetry, The History Forest (University of Regina Press). Rare Sighting of a Guillotine on the Savannah (Mansfield Press) was published last year. His short story collection, Encounters (NeWest Press) won the Saskatchewan Book of the Year and City of Regina Awards in 2006. A poetry collection, Accidental Animals (Hagios Press) was short-listed for the same awards in 2007. He has published three chapbooks, two with The Alfred Gustav Press, Melancholy Girl with Sitar (2020), Light’s Alibi (2018), and A Homemade Life with JackPine Press (2009).

It wasn’t until his early 50s that he was diagnosed with the learning disability Nonverbal Learning Disability (NVLD) that had affected him for all of his life, causing chronic clinical depression and generalized anxiety.

Fascinated by the culture, beauty and violence of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, he has traveled extensively, visiting numerous Holocaust memorial sites and camps, and going to many of the world’s most important art galleries. He works in various modes, lyric poetry, and more avant-garde, experimental work that blends Polaroid photography with text, he has similar range in creative non-fiction and the short story. He is also deeply compelled by the “natural” world, and is an amateur photographer. A father of three, he teaches English at the University of Regina.