Liz Maxwell Forbes

Born in Victoria, BC, on the eve of World War Two, Liz Maxwell Forbes spent her childhood roaming the beaches and rocky outcrops of Oak Bay. Never living far from the water, the lure of the ocean has shaped her life. The love of books was a big part of her childhood — she began writing an adventure novel at age seven, but abandoned that dream by chapter three. Fortunately she picked up the dream when she retired, writing anecdotes and observations of life in her community.

Liz is published in several collections of creative non-fiction as well as in monthly columns for local newspapers. Her story “Finding Sheila” is included in Somebody’s Child, an anthology on adoption published by Touchwood in 2011.

A mother and grandmother and life-long islander, she now shares her years with writer/artist partner Grant Evans near Osborne Bay in Crofton B.C., where she blissfully awakes at dawn to the sound of the sea gulls cry.

Liz is a member of the Federation of British Columbia Writers and a charter member of the Chemainus Writers.

Grant B. Evans

Grant B. Evans became enamoured of aviation at an early age, escaping his frantic babysitter and running off to the nearby Edmonton municipal airport. On that summer day, early in World War II, he climbed into the cockpit of an aged yellow Tiger Moth trainer discarded by the Air Force. In it he imagined his first airborne fantasy.

As a young man with a pilot’s license, he was hired, trained and licensed by the Federal Transport Department as an Air Traffic Controller. His first posting was Port Hardy Airport, where he lived with his growing family in wartime housing left by the RCAF. He grew to love North Vancouver Island and its outrageous characters, such as the infamous flying doctor of Alert Bay, or the Swede who ran a one-man logging operation at Bull Harbour. It was also here on the Keogh River that he encountered the steelhead that caused his addiction to all things fishing.

Following an early retirement from Air Traffic Control, he studied fine arts and art history and has sold his paintings and sculpture internationally. He lives with his writer/partner Liz Forbes in a seaside community on Southern Vancouver Island.