Owen Percy

Owen Percy is a Professor of Literary Studies in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Coordinator of Sheridan’s 4-year Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing. A prolific literary reviewer and critic of Canadian and postcolonial literature, he has written several popular and academic essays on a variety of topics and texts. His articles, essays, reviews, and interviews, have appeared in publications like Canadian Literature, Canadian Poetry, GEIST, The British Journal of Canadian Studies, Canadian Ethnic Studies, and Open Letter. As an editor and copy editor, he works primarily in poetry, criticism, and non-fiction; his most recent editorial work was selecting and introducing The Order In Which We Do Things: The Poetry of Tom Wayman for the Laurier Poetry Series (WLUP, 2014). Outside of academia he has organized literary contests, programs, conferences, readings, and events, led writing and book club workshops for diverse groups of readers and writers, and written in a professional capacity for journalistic, legal, reference, and communications publications.

Owen earned his Ph.D in English from the University of Calgary where his doctoral research focused on literary awards and prize culture in Canada. Since graduating in 2010, Owen has taught literature and writing at the University of Calgary, the University of Lethbridge, Mount Royal University, and St. Mary’s University College, coordinated community events and book launches at Calgary’s Shelf Life Books, worked as a professional researcher and writer in the legal field, and continued to present his research and writing at conferences in Canada and Europe.

Since joining the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Sheridan in 2014, Owen has taught communications, life writing, graphic novels, contemporary fiction, popular and genre fiction, organized the inaugural Sheridan Reads program, and taken on the editorship of Alchemy: The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Newsletter. His current research and teaching revolve around emerging models and conceptions of literary genre, cultural celebrity, publishing, and editing in Canadian and international contexts. As Program Coordinator for the Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing, Owen works hard to help hone a diverse, flexible set of critical skills in his students, and to advise them of their options and opportunities as they move through the program, through Sheridan, and through the trials and triumphs of living a literary life.