Person

Sorestad, Glen A., 1937-

1937-

Glen Allan Sorestad was born on May 21, 1937, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

He is a Canadian writer, poet, publisher, and educator. He graduated from the University of Saskatchewan (B.Ed., 1963; M.Ed., 1976) and became a teacher of English in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. In 1969, he joined the staff of Evan Hardy Collegiate in Saskatoon. As English Program Coordinator, he established the Creative Writing program there and was a key figure in organizing the groundbreaking Prairie Writers’ Conference. In 1960, he married Sonia Talpash, and in 1975, they co-founded the literary publishing house Thistledown Press in Saskatoon. After twenty-five years as publisher, he retired in January 2000 with the publication of over 200 literary titles to his credit. He is the author of a dozen books of poetry, of many short stories, including “Wind Songs" (1975), "Prairie Pub Poems" (1976), "Ancestral Dances" (1979), "Jan Lake Poems" (1984), "Stalking Place: Poems across Borders" (1988), "Today I Belong to Agnes" (2000) and "Blood & Bone, Ice & Stone" (2005). He was also the co-editor of many well-known anthologies. Sorestad has given over 300 public readings of his poetry, visiting every province in Canada and many parts of the United States and Europe. In 2000, he was appointed the first Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. In November 2001, he received the Saskatoon Book Award for his poetry collection, “Leaving Holds Me Here”. He was awarded the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal in 2003 and Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.