"Canada's top SLAM poetry spieler"
- CBC

"One of the most dynamic and intelligent performance poets on the globe"
- Chair, Spoken Word Canada

A novelist, playwright, musician, and poet, Brendan McLeod performs literature in many different guises. One of the country's most accomplished competitive performance poets, Brendan McLeod is a former Canadian SLAM poetry champion, Vancouver SLAM champion, and the runner up at the 2005 World SLAM poetry championship. Since then, he has performed at over 400 events in 10 countries, touring a combination of music, comedy, and dynamic storytelling to an international audience.

Brendan’s first novel, ‘The Convictions of Leonard McKinley’, was nominated for the 2008 Re:Lit Award, Canada's top prize for independent fiction. Two years later, his first play, ‘The Big Oops’ toured Western Canada, earning four star reviews from CBC, the Winnipeg Free Press, and the Edmonton Journal.

As a musician, he co-founded the modern folk band, The Fugitives, in 2005. Since then, the band has toured internationally, playing major folk and literature festivals in both Europe and the UK. The executive director of the Dylan Thomas Festival called the band, ‘One of the best events we’ve ever had…right up there with Allen Ginsberg and Ken Kesey.’ Their first release, ‘In Streetlight Communion’ was nominated for a 2007 Canadian Folk Music Award, and their last release came out on Light Organ Records and distributed through Universal Music.

Brendan is also a passionate teacher, offering workshops and courses on spoken word, music, and creative writing. He currently teaches spoken word at Langara College, is a member of the Vancouver ‘Poetry in Schools’ project, a youth mentor at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, and founded FreeWrite, the only free creative writing intensive for secondary schools in BC. He has also performed at high schools, youth festivals, and universities around the world.

Brendan’s latest project is a full-length storytelling show called, ‘The Fruit Machine’. A comedic show centered on the question: ‘To what length do we, as Canadians, go to protect our families?’ it draws on subjects as disparate as the BC court system, Robertson Davies, Facebook, and Iron Maiden. In firm disagreement with the words of William Lyon Mackenzie King, "Canadians in all their habits are essentially a temperate people" he explores the more hilarious aspects of our nation’s families. A combination of story and song - with a bit of topical SLAM poetry - Brendan’s monologue is ultimately a meditation on the natures of responsibility and love. Brendan has a BA (Honors with Distinction) in Philosophy from the University of Victoria, and an MA in Philosophy from the University of Waterloo. 

Brendan is a non-stop, high-energy storyteller equally at home with social and political commentary, family histrionics, surreal love poems, obscure adventure stories, and powerful personal stories. He runs the gamut of performance poetry, making him an effective live performer and an artist well equipped for collaboration.