Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of 27 books including Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy which won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award and Bird Arsonist (with Tom Prime). His latest book is the poetry collection, The Most Charming Creatures (ECW Press, 2022. Born in Northern Ireland to South African parents of Lithuanian Ashkenazi descent, he lives in Hamilton, Ontario.