Stephen Reid

Stephen Reid began writing in 1984 while serving a twenty-one-year prison sentence for his role as a member of the “Stopwatch Gang”, so named for their ability to rob banks and armoured cars in less than two minutes. During his sentence, he submitted a manuscript to Susan Musgrave, then writer-in-residence at the University of Waterloo. This developed into an ongoing correspondence, and Reid and Musgrave were married in 1986 at Kent Institution. Reid also published his novel, Jackrabbit Parole, that year. His articles and essays have been published in Playboy, Vice, Vancouver Magazine, Writers’ Digest, Prison Journal, Monday, and the Globe & Mail. He has taught creative writing, worked as a youth counsellor, and served on boards such as the John Howard Society and PEN Canada. Reid lived with Musgrave and his two daughters in Sidney, BC until 1999, when he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for a bank robbery in Victoria, after a prolonged bout with heroin and cocaine addiction.