Bill Arnott’s Beat

An Emerita in New West

I was reading author tips from Elmore Leonard who stated emphatically, “Don’t start a story with weather!” So I won’t. However, it may interest you to know it was a warm spring day, blossoms blushing the city like a haiku/tanka festival.

I was meeting with Poet Laureate Emerita Candice James in the literary city of New Westminster, a Vancouver suburb and BC’s former capital. Silver Bow Press is the company she runs, having taken over a fourvolume-a-year publisher and grown annual production to twenty-plus titles of poetry and fiction. Next year she anticipates bringing thirty books to print. The list of submissions is extensive, the majority of it excellent work from established authors.

Crossing town for our visit I felt an odd sense of nostalgia. James and I both made an unlikely professional transition to the arts – writing and music, from a background in finance. I suspect there aren’t many of us. Having done that for twenty-five years I knew Greater Vancouver as well as anyone – certainly better than most cabbies, the result of countless house calls, office and coffee meetings everywhere in southwest BC. My father-in-law was a cartographer, designing and publishing street maps. And on multiple occasions relied on me to find new or missing addresses. This was before the google car with the pointy thing or CSIS and retailers knowing precisely where we are (and what we’re shopping for) at all times.

But having cocooned for a few years in Vancouver proper, I’d become insulated by readings and performance gigs within walking distance of home. It felt good to break from the downtown chrysalis, remembering the vast veins of creative bullion beyond my trickling creek and personal prospector pan. There is indeed “gold in them there hills” or in this case, a well-treed town on the banks

Arriving at Silver Bow’s hub of operations I felt I was settling into the best bookstore/coffee shop ever – clean and bright, surrounded by stacks of crisp new volumes – a dizzying array of James’ own work, Silver Bow publications and signed copies of literary classics spanning forty years. It was as much a chance to catch up with Candice as anything, and to learn more about the New West lit scene, where she was Poet Laureate from 2010-2016, involved with and/or running Poetry New West, Royal City Literary Arts Society and Poetry in the Park. Poetic Justice, her successful reading series, continues to draw a wealth of talent.

I returned (pre-distancing) for the weekly Sunday offering at a welcoming, beer-soaked resto-pub, where American spoken word artist-activist Francisco Escamillo performed

a feature set. The fact this LA-based pro, known as the Bus Stop Prophet, wanted to be a part of the New West event indicates the extent of this thriving hub’s exposure and growing influence. I felt fortunate to be part of it, proud for my artist friends and the literary city-within-a-city we can all call our own.

Originally published by The Miramichi Reader and the Federation of BC Writers.

Bill Arnott is the bestselling author of Gone Viking: A Travel Saga, Dromomania, Allan’s Wishes, and Wonderful Magical Words. His Indie Folk CD is Studio 6. Bill’s work is published in literary journals, magazines and anthologies around the globe. He’s received songwriting and poetry prizes and is a Whistler Independent Book Awards Finalist with Gone Viking: A Travel Saga. Visit Bill @billarnott_aps and Gone Viking on Amazon here