Thomas Ethan Wayman was born in the small pulp-mill town of Hawkesbury, Ontario, in August 1945. In 1952 his parents, Morris and Sara Zadkin Wayman, moved to the town of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, where his father, a chemist, worked as a technician in the mill. Wayman, then, knew about work in the labor force from an early age, and he has never lost touch with his roots in that life. In 1959 Wayman's family moved to Vancouver, a city he still looks upon as his home base.

After receiving a B.A. from the University of British Columbia in 1966, Wayman went to Laguna Beach, California, where he graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with an M.F.A. degree in 1968. In 1968-1969 he taught English and writing at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. During these years on American campuses, Wayman was involved with the radical left movement, especially in...