About
A writer and collaborator working in fiction, poetry, theatre, opera, and film.
- Based
- Toronto, Canada
- Teaching
- Humber Polytechnic
David James Brock is a Canadian screenwriter, playwright, poet, and opera librettist with a national and international production history.
He won the 2011 Herman Voaden Canadian National Playwriting Award for Wet, later nominated for three Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards. His play–opera a million billion pieces, created with composer Gareth Williams for Young People’s Theatre, received five Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations and was published by Playwrights Canada Press.
His poetry collections Everyone is CO₂ and Ten-Headed Alien were published by Wolsak & Wynn. His story collection Beast Vocal is forthcoming from the same press in spring 2027.
As a librettist and lyricist, David has worked with Scottish Opera, Tapestry Opera, Canadian Art Song Project, FAWN Chamber Creative, Noise Opera, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, Fucked Up, and artists across music, dance, theatre, and film. Breath Cycle, developed with people living with cystic fibrosis, was nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.
He co-wrote the feature musical Mother of All Shows with Melissa D’Agostino. Their song “Mothers and Daughters, Daughters and Moms,” written with Rebecca Everett, received a Canadian Screen Award nomination. Their next feature, The Christmas Witch Trial of La Befana, stars Anjelica Huston.
David lives in Toronto and is a professor in Humber Polytechnic’s Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing program.