bpNICHOL (Barrie Phillip Nichol) was born September 30, 1944, in Vancouver, British Columbia. His writing is, by definition, engaged with what he called 'borderblur': in his lifetime he wrote (somewhere between) poetry, novels, short fiction, children's books, musical scores, comic book art, collage/assemblage, and computer texts. In the mid-1980s, bpNichol became a successful writer for the children's television show Fraggle Rock. His early work in sound was documented in Michael Ondaatje's film Sons of Captain Poetry. A second film has been made on Nichol, bp: pushing the boundaries, directed by Brian Nash. bpNichol died in Toronto, Ontario on September 25, 1988.

STEPHEN CAIN is the author of six full-length collections of poetry and a dozen chapbooks, including False Friends, I Can Say Interpellation, Zoom, Etc Phrases, American Standard/ Canada Dry, Torontology, and dyslexicon. His academic publications include The Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages (co-written with Tim Conley) and a critical edition of bpNichol’s early long poems: bp: beginnings. He lives in Toronto where he teaches avant-garde and Canadian literature at York University.