[1] He has published a collection of short stories, Random Acts of Hatred, which focuses on the lives of gay and bisexual men from childhood to early adulthood,[2] and a novel, ManBug.
[3] His new memoir is The Home Stretch: A Father, a Son, and All the Things They Never Talk About (2020, Arsenal Pulp Press).
Originally from the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia,[4] he has since been based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
[6] His writing has also appeared in the anthologies Queeries, Contra/Diction and First Person Queer, and in the literary magazines The Church-Wellesley Review, Event, Prairie Fire and Plenitude.
Ilsley was awarded an Honour of Distinction citation by the Writers' Trust of Canada's Dayne Ogilvie Grant in 2010,[7] and his 2014 piece "Bingo and Black Ice" won subTerrain magazine's Lush Triumphant Award for creative non-fiction in 2014.