Douglas Gibson has that insatiable desire to share with the world the things that occur to him. It may begin with a simple, quirky remark from a writer that has left him amused for days on end, or something that has gone awry with his own travels across the country that has caused him to be downright annoyed. For example, it could be triggered by a moment in Kingston when, at an Indigo bookstore, he was forced to compete with a deafening cappuccino machine that finally silenced him. Gibson knew he had met his match. He ceased to address the crowd, but also resolved never to return to that city to promote his book. He designated the city a “Gibson-free zone.”
I met Gibson in Windsor when he was on tour for his book Stories About Storytellers: Publishing Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau and Others. He had put together a one-man show that flashed a...
Marty Gervais is a writer, publisher and former newspaper columnist whose journalism, including his writings from Iraq, has won him honours. His most successful book was The Rumrunners: A Prohibition Scrapbook (revised and reissued by Biblioasis, 2009). Gervais is a recipient of the Harbourfront Festival Prize and the Queen’s Jubilee Medal.
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