Brief bio

Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, Brian immigrated to Canada in 1966 and has lived in Calgary since 1974. Over the course of his varied career he has worked as a golf caddy, lounge waiter, customs officer, nightclub pianist, church organist, radio news announcer, and been a featured storyteller on CBC Radio’s Daybreak Alberta, a popular program heard across the province.

As a newspaper and magazine journalist, Brian has written on a variety of topics including politics, business, theatre, contemporary music, medicine, education, and travel. He has been president of the Canadian Association of Journalists (Calgary chapter), as well as a national board member chairing the CAJ ethics committee. He is a past president of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association, a former CBC Radio arts commentator, and once earned a decent living as an Irish folk singer and musician.

Brian has won national and regional awards in Canada for his freelance writing. They include two Western Magazine Awards (Gold Award Alberta, Science and Technology Award), for stories on regeneration of animal brain cells, and the national Hollobon Award for medical writing in Canada, which he won for a magazine feature story on open-heart surgery. In 2004, he was named the first winner of the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award.