MARILYN BOWERING was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised and educated in Victoria, B.C. She graduated from the University of Victoria in 1973 with an MA in English Literature.

Her first book of poetry, The Liberation of Newfoundland, came out in 1973. Since then she has published seven collections of poetry, including The Sunday Before Winter (1984), which was short-listed for the Governor General's Award for poetry and Love As It Is (1993). Marilyn also works in fiction, and has published The Visitors Have All Returned (1979) and the novel To All Appearances a Lady (1989), which was nominated for both the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the B.C. Book Prize, and has been published in Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain.

Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies (including the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, and New Poets of Canada); and she has written extensively for the BBC and CBC. She has received a variety of awards, including the Du Maurier prize for poetry, and her plays have been nominated for both the Sony Award and the Prix Italia. She has also co-edited an anthology of contemporary Canadian Indian poetry (Many Voices), and written for children's theatre (Hajimari-no-Hajimari for Victoria's Kaleidoscope Theatre) in collaboration with the Japanese director Yukio Sekyia.

Marilyn has travelled extensively and has lived in Greece, Scotland, the Queen Charlotte Islands, and most recently Seville, Spain. Recently she was Writer in Residence at Memorial University of Newfoundland.