Jean Isabel Smith is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead singer of the Vancouver band Mecca Normal, as well as a painter, novelist, lecturer and filmmaker. Her work explores themes of feminism and anti-authoritarianism. Smith met Mecca Normal bandmate David Lester in 1981 while the two were working together at a Vancouver newspaper. In 1986, Smith and Lester co-created, co-organized and participated in The Black Wedge?anti-authoritarian musicians and poets touring in the USA, Canada and England. As a result of her work in Mecca Normal, Smith is now considered a forerunner of the 1990s politically charged riot grrrl movement, influencing many female artists within, and beyond, the genre. In August 1993, Smith's first novel I Can Hear Me Fine was published by David Lester's publishing company Get to the Point. Her second novel, The Ghost of Understanding, was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 1998. Chapbooks The Family Swan and Other Songs and Two Stories were published by Get to the Point. Jean Smith is represented by the Carolyn Swayze Literary Agency. In 2000 and 2006, Jean Smith received Canada Council for the Arts awards as a professional writer of creative fiction. 

August 1st, 1959 in Canada (Age 64)