BC BookWorld features Gabriolans
When Phyllis Reeve wrote the back page blurbs for Naomi Beth Wakan’s latest book, A Roller-coaster Ride: Thoughts on aging, little did she know it would morph into a full-paged article in the summer issue of BC BookWorld.
We all remember the wonderful soirées that Phyllis and her husband, Ted, held at Page’s Resort, and how much they both do to support the arts community on Gabriola. Now retired from the tourism industry, Phyllis, a former University of British Columbia librarian, still follows happenings in the book world closely and writes perceptively for a variety of publications.
While operating the bookstore at Page’s, she was delighted to launch Naomi’s first book of poetry, Segues, and she and Ted sponsored four more of Naomi’s books.
When Alan Twigg, the publisher of BC BookWorld, heard of the review Phyllis had written for A Roller-coaster Ride, he thought it a perfect opportunity to add a nod in acknowledgement to Pacific-Rim Publishers, the educational publishing house that Naomi and her husband, Elias, had formerly run in Vancouver. So he added a chunk of publishing history to Phyllis’s insightful essay on Naomi and the result took up a whole page in BC BookWorld.
It should be added that other Gabriola personalities are also featured in this issues.
Charlotte Cameron has contributed a review of Laurie Lewis’s memoir, Little Comrades, and on the same page as Phyllis’s article Naomi is shown standing in front of the marvelous sculpture Nancy Crozier did of her. It was made by shredding a number of Naomi’s books and using the paper to mold the piece. A rather severe form of criticism, Naomi thought, but she loved the creative result.
To all the Gabriolans involved, a big congratulation.