Derek Alexander Beaulieu was born in 1973 and lives in Calgary, Alberta. He has one child, Madeleine.
Beaulieu received a Bachelors of Arts in English and History from the University of Calgary in 1996, after which he studied at the Alberta College of Art + Design, from 1996–1998. He completed an MA in English Literature at the University of Calgary in 2004, where he produced a thesis: "TISH Magazine 1961–1969: ‘Another Sense of Things.’" Beaulieu obtained a Bachelors of Education in Secondary English Education from the University of Calgary in 2008, then went on to complete a PhD in Creative Writing from Roehampton University. His dissertation is entitled “Text without Text: Concrete Poetry and Conceptual Writing.”

Beaulieu worked as Managing Editor and Poetry Editor of “filling Station” magazine on and off between 1998 and 2008. He was Administrative Director at The New Gallery in Calgary from 2003 to 2006. Beaulieu founded housepress and was its editor and publisher from 1997 to 2004. He founded No press, a micropress with a focus on limited-run chapbooks dedicated to experimental, concrete and conceptual writing, in 2005. Beaulieu has taught creative writing and contemporary Canadian literature with the Calgary Board of Education, the Alberta College of Art + Design, the University of Calgary and Mount Royal University.

Books written by Beaulieu include “With Wax” (2003), “fractal economies” (2006), “frogments from the frag pool: haiku after basho” (2005), and “Please, No More Poetry: The Poetry of Derek Beaulieu” (2013). Edited book projects include “Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry” (co-edited with Jason Christie and Angela Rawlings, 2005), “Writing Surfaces: Selected Fiction of John Riddell” (co-edited with Lori Emerson, 2013), and “The Calgary Renaissance” (co-edited with rob mclennan, 2016).

Beaulieu has published numerous articles, poems, reviews and Beaulieu has published essays in various anthologies and periodicals including “Canadian Literature,” “FFWD,” “filling Station,” “Lemon Hound,” “Open Letter” and “Rampike.” He has exhibited visual work in galleries such as the Brodsky Gallery, Niagara Arts Centre, TRUCK Gallery and Uppercase Gallery. He was the Poet Laureate of Calgary from 2014–2016 and is the Visual / Concrete Poetry Editor for Ubuweb.