Bruce Wishart

I was the kid with the paperback in his back pocket. Growing up in the Minnedosa Valley, in southwestern Manitoba, I snuck off into the trees and fields to read a book, or write in a notebook, or just study the world around me. I loved the natural world, and I loved adventure stories — particularly stories about the sea. I started writing before I can remember. By elementary school I had graduated to stapled, self-illustrated little things, and I saw my first magazine publication a couple of weeks shy of my 13th birthday.

I gravitated toward the press, and in a 30-year career I worked as reporter, editor, publisher and owner of magazines and newspapers. I worked in radio, from Prince Edward Island to Vancouver Island. I did freelance magazine work, wrote songs, sang and played guitar – mostly as a member of the coz, and then, before I hung up the six-string in 1993, as half of a children’s duo called Peppermint Taffy. I love all museums and libraries, and have always tried to find volunteer time for both. In my spare time I wrote fiction.

My work has taken me to all parts of Canada, and now into the United States as well. In 1995 I came to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and when the newspaper I published was closed in 1999 I stepped off the carousel. We loved this place and wanted to stay. I still live with my family in Prince Rupert, still carry a paperback and a writing notebook, and still tell stories for a living.