Barbara Landry

(United States)

Barbara Landry was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. She grew up in Canada and studied piano and English literature at McGill University. She spent the next 10 years in Mexico where she taught school-aged children music and English. Upon returning to Canada she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and was told by her doctor to give up playing the piano. She refused to give in to the prognosis and continued her music studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Afterwards she decided to go to Teacher's College and began teaching English as a Second Language with the Toronto District School Board. She has now been teaching in Toronto for over 20 years. Throughout this period she has also kept up her piano playing, and performs on a regular basis.

In 2003 Landry suffered another major episode of MS. During this period she turned to writing as way of dealing with the immediate crisis. From this writing came two chapbooks: Love Letters (2005) and Heart-Shaped Rock (2006) with Lyricalmyrical Press; and trade book, This Is How I Love You (2008) with Quattro Books.

Throughout her life, artistic expression has been Landry's response to the challenges of MS. She hopes that her music and writing will be an encouragement to others, who find themselves in a similar situation.