Silas White

White grew up in a literary household in Pender Harbour, British Columbia, where his parents Howard and Mary White operated Harbour Publishing, one of British Columbia's major book publishers. White worked at Harbour Publishing during his youth and co-authored Local Heroes, a history of the Western Hockey League while still in high school. He attended the University of British Columbia on a President's Scholarship, receiving a BA in 1999 and moved to Toronto, where he pursued his interest in indie rock music, writing songs and performing in venues around the city with his band Electric Fences. White now lives in Gibsons, British Columbia with his daughters Simone (b. 2007) and Eloise (b. 2010). In 2011 he received a master's degree in public administration from the University of Victoria.

In the early 2000s he took over the historic Canadian literary press, Nightwood Editions Ltd. (formerly blewointment, founded by bill bissett), and began publishing poetry and fiction by Canadian writers such as Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Tim Bowling, Rita Wong, Philip Kevin Paul, Laisha Rosnau, Ray Hsu, Rob Winger, Sandy Pool, Joe Denham, Kayla Czaga, Doretta Lau, Raoul Fernandes, Danny Ramadan, Carol Rose GoldenEagle, Adele Barclay and jaye simpson.[4] Under his leadership Nightwood Editions became the flagship press for the generation of literary writers who emerged in Canada during the 2000s. White has also pursued an independent career as editor and author, serving as contributing editor of the Encyclopedia of British Columbia and editing both prose and poetry for other Canadian publishers, including Raincoast Books, ECW Press, Harbour Publishing and Saturday Night Magazine. One of his editing jobs, The Fly in Autumn by David Zieroth, won the 2010 Governor General's Award for Poetry, Canada's highest literary honour.

A community activist since his teens, in 2005 White was elected to the Board of Education at School District 46 Sunshine Coast.[5] In 2007 he was selected by his colleagues as board chair, the youngest person to hold that post in British Columbia.[6] He also served as a Director and Vice-Chair of the British Columbia Public School Employers' Association until Premier Christy Clark replaced the board with a public administrator to exercise direct control over teacher bargaining by the provincial government.[7]

In 2014 he left the board of School District 46 to run as councillor for the Town of Gibsons, topping the poll.[8] As a councillor he represented the Town for two years at the Sunshine Coast Regional District and led initiatives to improve a major intersection; start a homeless shelter; expand the local, self-sustaining water service; and secure federal land for a provincial supportive housing facility. He also collaborated regionally with Josie Osborne, Lisa Helps and others to start the Coast Communities Social Procurement Initiative, the first of its kind in Canada.[9]

On July 1, 2018, White sustained a grade 3 concussion in a bike accident outside his home and took a leave from Nightwood Editions. During this period he was acclaimed as mayor for the Town of Gibsons, but withdrew due to the advancement of his symptoms from a car accident on a precarious S-bend corner just outside of Gibsons.[10] He subsequently faced charges associated with the accident for over two years, that finally culminated in a careless driving fine in December 2020. White gradually returned to Nightwood Editions in 2019 and in August released a retroactive album of Electric Fences recordings from 15 years prior, Retroact 2001-2004, with Vancouver indie label Kingfisher Bluez.[11] In the 2020 British Columbia general election, he managed the underdog campaign of his former Gibsons council colleague, Jeremy Valeriote, for the Green Party of British Columbia in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, winning on the election day count but narrowly losing by 60 votes to incumbent Jordan Sturdy of the British Columbia Liberal Party when mail-in ballots where counted, confirmed by a judicial recount.[12]

• Moore, John (2006). "Award Winners Follow B.C. Publisher White", The Vancouver Sun, February 18, 2006.
• Hanson, Cheri and Weiler, Derek (2009) "12 to Watch", Quill & Quire, March, 2009.

• 1993: Local Heroes: A History of the Western Hockey League (Harbour Publishing) ISBN 978-1-55017-080-1
• 1999: The Encyclopedia of British Columbia (Harbour Publishing) ISBN 978-1-55017-200-3