Adèle Barclay (she/they) is a writer of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. She is the recipient of the 2016 Lit POP Award, The Walrus’ 2016 Readers’ Choice Award for Poetry, The Fiddlehead’s 2022 Fiction Prize and a 2025 Gold National Magazine Award for Best Column & Essay. Their debut poetry collection, If I Were in a Cage I’d Reach Out for You, (Nightwood, 2016) was nominated for the 2015 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and won the 2017 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her second collection of poetry, Renaissance Normcore (Nightwood, 2019), featured in Toronto Star and CBC Books, was nominated for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the ReLit Award and placed third for the 2020 Fred Cogswell Award

Chapters from their forthcoming memoir Black Cherry have received numerous nominations from The Fiddlehead, The Malahat, TNQ, CRAFT Literary, and others and placed in contests by Room, PRISM international, and Event.

She was the Interviews Editor at The Rusty Toque, Canadian Women In Literary Art’s 2016-17 Critic in Residence, Arc Magazine’s 2018-19 Poet in Residence, the 2020 University of the Fraser Valley’s Writer in Residence, an editor for Riddle Fence’s Poetry Imprint, and an editor of chapbooks for the now defunct Rahila’s Ghost Press. Adèle is the recipient of multiple grants from the BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Access Copyright, and SSHRC, and has attended Tin House Summer Workshop and Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

They teach creative writing and literature at Capilano University and live on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), səlilwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, colonially known as Vancouver, BC.

Contact by email: adelebarclay@gmail.com