Jocko (Jacques) Benoit has published poems in magazines in Canada, the U.S., England and Australia. He is the author of An Anarchist Dream (Edmonton: Raccoon's Den Publishers, 1997). A second book of poetry, Standoff Terrain (Frontenac House) came out in April 2010. His fiction has appeared in On Spec and the anthology Tesseracts7. Two of his screenplays have been finalists in Canadian and U.S. competitions.
For the last thirteen years he has worked for Athabasca University, designing and writing three of their Communications courses, and is currently putting together a course about videogames. He has also hosted and co-hosted several television series (including the regular series, Movies Worth Watching) about film and television for Access TV and Canadian Learning Television, both locally in Alberta and Canada-wide. His most recent venture is into photography and he has worked as a photographer for the Anti-Camouflage fashion line.
Originally from Montreal, he was raised in Cape Breton, mainly Sydney, and then further educated in Ontario and Alberta. After living nineteen years in Edmonton and whooping it up with the Stroll of Poets, he currently divides his time between Calgary and Washington, D.C..
Check out his rants and raves on writing and pop culture on his blog, and look for his latest pictures on Flickr.
NEW: You can hear me reading a selection from Standoff Terrain at Authors Aloud and from the Calgary Dektet reading at friendfeed.
NEW: Check out the review of Standoff Terrain in the Halifax Chronicle Herald.
NEW: My second book, Standoff Terrain (Frontenac House) made #1 onThe Edmonton Journal bestseller list for non-fiction the week of May 16th and then made #3 on the fiction bestseller list in The Calgary Herald for the week of May 23rd. I guess no one is sure just how much of what I wrote in the book is true.
Relaxing after our Road Warrior shoot, June
1997.