Jamaican born Olive Senior is a poet, fiction writer, journalist, and editor, and one of Canada’s most internationally recognized and acclaimed authors. She won the inaugural Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1987 for her short story collection Summer Lightning and Other Stories and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for her poetry collection Over the Roofs of the World. Her body of work includes four books of poetry, three collections of short stories, a novel, a children's picture book and several award-winning non-fiction works on Caribbean culture. Her publishing history can be found at www.olivesenior.com. A study of Olive Senior's work was recently published by Northcote/The British Council in their series Writers and Their Work. Her work is used in university level courses on Caribbean writing, particularly in the United States.

Olive Senior's novel, Dancing Lessons, was shortlisted in 2012 for both the amazon.ca first novel prize and the rebranded Commonwealth Book Prize for first novel and has made the IMPAC Dublin 2013 long list. She has recently completed a new short story collection and is now working on a non-fiction book about the Caribbean workers involved in the building of the Panama Canal.

Olive Senior is regarded as a distinctive voice in West Indian literature. Critics have praised her reproduction of authentic Jamaican Creole in her written work, as well as her insightful exploration of such issues as identity, cultural nationalism, class stratification, and the oppressive impact of religion on women and the poor. Senior lives in Toronto and teaches at the Humber School for Writers. She tours extensively each year in the UK, the Caribbean, Europe, and Australia giving readings and seminars.