More books, less local content in B.C.
The Tyee recently posted a good-news/bad-news article about the state of books in B.C. The good news is that local publishers are doing well and the Vancouver International Writers Festival is putting the province on the literary map. The bad news is that “there’s less about B.C. in locally produced books.” As BC Bookworld publisher Alan Twigg tells The Tyee, “I don’t perceive a strengthening of the B.C. literary climate…. it’s harder to find culturally newsworthy books about B.C. in 2007 than 1997.” And Twigg and others blame a familiar culprit: the big-box phenomenon and the decline of the independent bookselling sector.
I thought I should add a glimmer of hope to your good news/bad news piece. I have just up-loaded that glimmer to my printer. For the past year, I have been gathering, editing and writing a collection of tales about pioneers and passers-by in this one hundred year old place called, Riondel.
The title of my “good news” is “A Recollection of Moments: Riondel 1907-2007″. It will be piled up in my kitchen by mid-July.
Riondel is in the Kootenays. My printer is in Cranbrook. My publisher, downstairs on his computer, is my husband. Nothing so far has escaped over the Rockies.
Just thought you would like to know.
Wendy M. E. Scott –
author & columnist for The East Shore Mainstreet (another Kootenay creation)