Originally Posted by
Nostradama
Nanaimo has its fair share of resident writers, too. There are at least two women in town who write romance novels and make a good living at it. Another woman who began by being an illustrator for children's books (and very good at it, too, I taught two of her kids and saw some of her work) who has now begun to write children's books herself, I hear. And there's Susan Juby, but I'm not completely sure she still lives here, but certainly she did this winter, because she was the "writer in residence" at our main library branch for a few months. She's written a series of books aimed at mid-teen girls, and I can't remember all of the titles, but one of them certainly was "Miss Smithers." I read them, too, and they're good. Ann Cameron started her writing career here, but I think she lives on the Sunshine Coast (north of Vancouver on the mainland) now. She's written some really great books that have sold well, but I'm not positive that "Ann Cameron" is the name she writes under, but certainly a lot of people here knew that she was a writer, so I'm not invading her privacy. But probably some people on this forum remember her. She lived in an area of Nanaimo called Harewood for a long time. Barry Broadfoot, who died a few years ago, lived here, and he wrote nine books that were mostly bestsellers, including his best known one, "Ten Lost Years," about the Depression. He also wrote newspaper columns that appeared in newspapers all over Canada for many years. Then there was a writer named Malcolm Lowry whose book "Under the Volcano" became a movie, and he wrote other books as well, I believe, but that one is his most famous. North Vancouver likes to say he wrote the book there, but at least part of it was written while he was living on Gabriola Island, which is sort of in Nanaimo Harbour. Well, let North Vancouver say that--but we know the truth. And there's a lady here whose name I can't remember who at least used to write Japanese haiku and won prizes for them all over the world, including Japan, which is really remarkable, considering that she wasn't of Japanese descent and didn't read, write, or speak Japanese. So I think it's safe to say that Nanaimo is "writer friendly."
And, no, I wasn't an English teacher.
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Jack's been away from teaching for years, but was already writing when he was still teaching at NDSS.
I taught with Larry Miller later, but not at NDSS. And was this the famous Miss Johnston, a legend in her own time--and after she retired? And my memory just threw up the names of the couple who owned the Cosy Corner at one time, but I don't know whether they owned it while you were at ND--Blanche and Howard (Besse, I think.) You hardly ever saw him, because he was a logging instructor at the Vocational Training School across the street, but in the bush all the time teaching, pretty well. I met them when Malaspina College was just starting up and merging with VTS. Nice people. But we lost a lot when VTS got taken over, I always thought. What's on that corner now? It's been years since I've been that far down Wakesiah.
