Born in Victoria in 1949, Britt Hagarty was sent to Brannan Lake School on Vancouver Island for minor theft in 1965. In 1966 he came to Vancouver and met bill bissett, who published some of his poetry. Like bissett, haggarty renounced capitalization of his own name. A rock 'n' roll musician who was addicted to heroin and repeatedly busted for marijuana possession, he wrote his novelized memoirs between 1976 and 1978 about a character named Sean Gallagher, publishing Prisoner of Desire (Talonbooks) and Sad Paradise (Talonbooks). Two years of research into the life of singer Gene Vincent (1935-1971) resulted in hagarty's biography of Vincent, The Day the World Turned Blue (Talonbooks, 1983). britt hagarty died in hospital shortly after being hit by a car on Halloween night in 1999.

[BCBW 2003] "Music"