Richard Scott Bakker (born February 2, 1967, Simcoe, Ontario) is a Canadian fantasy author. He grew up on a tobacco farm in the Simcoe area, and in 1986 attended the University of Western Ontario to pursue a degree in Literature, and later an MA in Theory and Criticism. After nearly completing, but ultimately abandoning, a Ph.D in Philosophy at Vanderbilt University (i.e. opting to devote himself to "the craft of literature" rather than "the crap of academia"), he moved to London Ontario, where