Michael Blair

Michael Blair was born in Montreal in 1946 but was dragged kicking and screaming to Toronto in 1954. He started writing in high school, but it wasn’t until 1968, after a one-week stint with the Royal Canadian Air Force – they came to the mutual understanding that democracy didn’t need his protection; besides, they added, he had a problem with authority, which he promptly denied – that he decided to try to make a career of it. Since then, he’s worked at an assortment of jobs: carpentry, deli counterman, retail store display, freelance art reviewer and copy writer, bookstore proprietor, computer network administrator. In 1980 he returned to Montreal. His first novel (If Looks Could Kill, M&S, 2001) was shortlisted for the 1999 Chapters/Robertson Davies Prize and the 2001 Quebec Writers’ Federation First Book Prize. Since then he has published five more novels, most recently True Believers (LLP, 2015).