George Murray

Gov­er­nor (Newfoundland)

George Mur­ray is an accom­plished writer and arts admin­is­tra­tor liv­ing in St. John’s, New­found­land. Artis­ti­cally, he is rec­og­nized world­wide as a a poet with five acclaimed books and a pub­lish­ing record span­ning all con­ti­nents. He also writes arts jour­nal­ism for mag­a­zines and news papers such as Maison­neuve, the Globe and Mail, The Guardian, the Toronto Star, etc. In 2009, George was a judge for the Gov­er­nor General’s Lit­er­ary Award and has him­self been nom­i­nated for sev­eral pres­ti­gious prizes in Canada and the US. He has spo­ken and lec­tured around Canada and the US, notably as a keynote for orga­ni­za­tions such as the Ontario Pub­lic Library Asso­ci­a­tion and at Prince­ton University.

As an arts admin­is­tra­tor, George has been the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Cul­tural Indus­tries of New­found­land and Labrador, an arts advo­cacy and pol­icy research orga­ni­za­tion, since Feb­ru­ary 2007. He has sat on numer­ous national, provin­cial and munic­i­pal advi­sory pan­els, boards and com­mit­tees, and has appeared before all lev­els of gov­ern­ment to give tes­ti­mony about the impact of gov­ern­ment pol­icy on the arts and cul­ture sec­tor in New­found­land and Labrador.

Pre­vi­ous pro­fes­sional posi­tions include: inter­na­tional com­mu­ni­ca­tions coor­di­na­tor for the Uni­ver­sity of Toronto; com­mu­ni­ca­tions coor­di­na­tor for the President’s Office (Memo­r­ial Uni­ver­sity); and pol­icy ana­lyst for the New York City Cam­paign Finance Board, as well as many posi­tions as an edu­ca­tor of adults and youth.