42 Writers from Hamilton, Ontario

Barbara Joan Estelle Amiel, Baroness Black of Crossharbour DSS is a British-Canadian conservative journalist, writer, and socialite. She is the wife of former media proprietor Conrad Black.

Julie Barlow is a Canadian journalist, author and conference speaker who writes and publishes both in English and French and is based in Montreal, Quebec.

Gary Barwin is a Canadian poet, writer, composer, multimedia artist, performer and educator who lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He writes in a range of genres including poetry, fiction, visual poetry, music for live performers and computers, text and sound works, and writing for children and young adults. His music and writing have been presented in Canada, the US, Japan, and Europe.

Henrietta Mary Batson née Blackman (1859–1943) was an English writer whose interest in the countryside and rural people was an important theme in her novels and much of her non-fiction. She often published as Mrs. Stephen Batson, or sometimes as H.M. Batson.

Harvey Brownstone is a judge of the Ontario Court of Justice and the first openly gay judge in Canada. He is also a bestselling author and host of a television talk show on matters involving family law.

Martyn Burke is a Canadian director, novelist and screenwriter from Toronto, Ontario.

Hector Willoughby Charlesworth was a Canadian writer, editor, and critic.

Damien Cox is a journalist, broadcaster and author based in Toronto. Currently, he writes two columns a week for The Toronto Star, who he has written for since 1985, and was the co-host of Prime Time Sports with Bob McCown on Sportsnet The Fan 590. Cox also writes for Sportsnet.ca on hockey. He has covered the NHL and the Toronto Maple Leafs as a reporter and columnist for over 28 years, as well as the 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics, and many other international hockey events.

Dave "Rave" DesRoches is a Canadian rock musician from Hamilton, Ontario.

Glen Downey is a Canadian children's author, teacher, and academic from Oakville, Ontario. His publications include more than ninety books for young people across a variety of genres that focus specifically on the development of child and adolescent literacy and numeracy. Downey is best known as the series editor of Graphic Poetry, winner of both the 2010 "Texty" Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association, and the 2011 Teachers' Choice Award for Children's Books from Learning magazine. Downey came up with the concept for Graphic Poetry as a way of making poetry engaging for 21st century readers. Several of Downey's books are for award-winning educational series developed by Rubicon Publishing. These include Boldprint, The 10, Boldprint Graphic Readers, and Boldprint Graphic Novels.

Kenneth Wayne Dryden,, is a Canadian politician, lawyer, businessman, author, and former National Hockey League (NHL) goaltender. He is an officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Dryden was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 2004 to 2011, and served as a cabinet minister from 2004 to 2006. In 2017, Dryden was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history. He received the Order of Hockey in Canada in 2020.

Ellen Louks Fairclough was a Canadian politician. A member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1950 to 1963, she was the first woman ever to serve in the Canadian Cabinet.

Schuyler Lee (Sky) Gilbert Jr. is a Canadian writer, actor, academic and drag performer. Born in Norwich, Connecticut, he studied theatre at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and at the University of Toronto, before becoming the co-founder and artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times, a Toronto theatre company dedicated to LGBT drama. His drag name is Jane. Gilbert also teaches a course on playwrighting at the University of Guelph.

Christopher Gudgeon is an author, poet and screenwriter. He has contributed to numerous magazines – including Playboy, MAD and National Lampoon – and written almost 20 books, from critically acclaimed fiction and poetry like Song of Kosovo¸ Encyclopedia of Lies, Assdeep in Wonder and Greetings from the Vodka Sea, to celebrated biographies of Stan Rogers and Milton Acorn, to popular history on subjects as varied as sex, fishing and lotteries. He is also Executive Director of It Gets Better Canada, a not-for-profit organization promoting positive messages of hope for LGBTQ+ youth.

Jordan Hall is a Canadian writer, playwright and web series creator, best known for creating the award-winning LGBT web series Carmilla.

John Hillcoat is an Australian-Canadian film director, screenwriter, and music video director.

Margaret Lindsay Holton is a Canadian artist primarily known for her 'naive-surreal-folk-abstracts' oil and acrylic paintings, pinhole photography, short documentary film productions, poetry and literary novel works.

Jason Pierre Jones is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He was a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 2005 to 2015. Since 2016, Jones has starred in the TBS comedy series The Detour, which he created with his wife, Samantha Bee.

Phoebe Goodell Judson was a Canadian and American pioneer and author. Along with her husband, Holden Judson, she founded the city of Lynden, Washington. In 1886, she started the Northwest Normal School, which would become Western Washington University.

Robert Kirkland Kernighan was a Canadian poet, journalist, and farmer.

Eugene Levy CM is a Canadian actor, comedian, producer, director, and writer. From 1976 until 1984, he appeared in the Canadian television sketch comedy series SCTV. He is also well known for works such as the American Pie series of movies and the Canadian sitcom Schitt's Creek. He often plays flustered and unconventional figures. He is a regular collaborator of actor-director Christopher Guest, appearing in and co-writing four of his films, commencing with Waiting for Guffman (1996).

Jean Newton McIlwraith was a Canadian novelist and biographer.

Evah May McKowan was a Canadian writer.

John Mighton, OC is a Canadian mathematician, author, and playwright. He founded JUMP Math, a charitable organization that works to educate students in mathematics, in 2001. Mighton was born in Hamilton, Ontario on October 2, 1957 and lives in Toronto, Ontario with partner Pamela Sinha and daughter Chloe.

James Winslow Mortimer was a Canadian comic book and comic strip artist best known as one of the major illustrators of the DC Comics superhero Superman. He additionally drew for Marvel Comics, Gold Key Comics, and other publishers.

Haydain Neale was a Canadian singer-songwriter from Hamilton, Ontario. He was best known as the lead singer of Juno Award-winning band jacksoul. Neale also served on the faculty of the Humber College Summer Songwriting Workshop and as president of the Songwriters Association of Canada.

Steven Hillel Paikin is a Canadian journalist, author, and documentary producer. Paikin has primarily worked for TVOntario (TVO), Ontario's public broadcaster, and is anchor of TVO's flagship current affairs program The Agenda with Steve Paikin.

Matt Paxton is a Canadian singer-songwriter from Hamilton, Ontario.

Neil Ellwood Peart OC was a Canadian musician, songwriter, and author, best known as the drummer and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush. Peart earned numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the Modern Drummer Readers Poll Hall of Fame in 1983, making him the youngest person ever so honoured. Known to fans by the nickname 'The Professor', his drumming was renowned for its technical proficiency and his live performances for their exacting nature and stamina.

Alexander Fraser Pirie was a Canadian journalist and newspaper editor.

Murray Pomerance is an independent Canadian film scholar and author living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Frank Powell was a Canadian-born stage and silent film actor, director, producer, and screenwriter who worked predominantly in the United States. He is also credited with "discovering" Theda Bara and casting her in a starring role in the 1915 release A Fool There Was. Her performance in that production, under Powell's direction, quickly earned Bara widespread fame as the film industry's most popular evil seductress or on-screen "vamp".

Ivan Reitman, is a Czechoslovak-Canadian film and television director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his comedy work, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. He is the owner of The Montecito Picture Company, founded in 1998.

Rebecca Rosenblum is a Canadian author best known for her short stories.

Lorraine Christine Segato is a Canadian pop singer-songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist for and a principal songwriter of new wave and pop rock group The Parachute Club, with which she continues to perform.

Martin Hayter Short is a Canadian–American actor, comedian, singer, and writer. He is known for his work on the television programs SCTV and Saturday Night Live. He has starred in comedy films such as Three Amigos (1986), Innerspace (1987), Three Fugitives (1989), Father of the Bride (1991), Pure Luck (1991), Captain Ron (1992), Father of the Bride Part II (1995), Mars Attacks! (1996), Jungle 2 Jungle (1997), and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006). Short created the characters Jiminy Glick and Ed Grimley.

Dave Sim is a Canadian cartoonist and publisher, best known for his comic book Cerebus, his artistic experimentation, his advocacy of self-publishing and creators' rights, and his controversial political, philosophical and religious beliefs.

Carrie Snyder is a Canadian writer. Her 2012 short story collection The Juliet Stories was a nominee for the Governor General's Award for English fiction at the 2012 Governor General's Awards. She is also the author of the blog, Obscure Canlit Mama.

Ania Szado is a Canadian writer.

Alan Walker, FRSC is an English-Canadian musicologist and university professor best known as a biographer and scholar of composer Franz Liszt.

Robert Stanley Weir was a Montreal, Quebec judge and poet most famous for writing the English lyrics to "O Canada", the national anthem of Canada. He was educated as a teacher and lawyer and considered one of the leading experts of the day on Quebec's municipal civil law. He was appointed a municipal court judge and a judge for the Exchequer Court of Canada.

Paul Robert Wilson is a Canadian translator and writer. In 1967 he moved to Czechoslovakia where he performed as a singer with The Plastic People of the Universe. Because he was a member of this group, he was expelled from Czechoslovakia in 1977. This band was banned in Czechoslovakia and their recordings could not be officially released. Wilson later founded a record label Boží Mlýn and released some of their recordings in Canada.