GROWING UP WEIRD a memoir of an Oak Bay childhood
Growing Up Weird by Liz Maxwell Forbes is now available!
To read about this book, and find a list of places you can purchase the book, click here.
Enjoy!
Category Archives: Writing
Coming soon… River Tales
River Tales – Stories from My Cowichan Years, a new memoir by Liz Maxwell Forbes, available June 2019.
Swept up in the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s, two couples buy a rural property and set in motion what would be twenty years of adventure and misadventure for Liz Maxwell Forbes. The backdrop for this engaging picture of country living is the Cowichan River, a constant presence and reminder of what is most important in life.
Through everything, there was always someone who said, “You’ve got to write about this.” River Tales is ‘this’, one woman’s personal stories from that special time and place.
River Tales will be available from this site, Ivy’s Book Shop and Bungalow Books in Oak Bay, Volume One in Duncan, and Rainforest Arts in Chemainus.
This map of Liz Forbes’ river property is a lively visual of the many stories to be found in River Tales. Drawn by her daughter Maureen Hodding who was there.
Books for Sale
We have our books. 200 wonderful lovely books printed two days before Christmas. We dashed down island over the Malahat through fog and rain and almost snow to First Choice Books in Victoria and picked up Grant’s copies of View From The Tower. We were able to fill the almost 20 pre-orders before Christmas.
Yesterday, we placed copies of View From The Tower at Amy Jo’s Cafe by the Crofton ferry terminal to Salt Spring Island.
Ashley Harris receiving Grant’s books before she serves our coffee and muffins.
It is a new year and a new look at our local coffee shop. When we took Grant’s books in today we noticed that they had redecorated over the holidays and the wall colour matched the cover of Grant’s new book perfectly! Amy Jo and her daughter Ashley have a section featuring local authors and View From The Tower is well placed among these authors. The cafe is a popular spot for tourists and locals to buy the local art work, hand crafts and books on display.
Local artist Beckie Hutchinson and Vicki Halme buying copies of View From The Tower from Amy Jo’s.
Copies of View From The Tower are also for sale at Volume One Books on Kenneth Street in Duncan as well as directly from our web site.
Next step is to place the books at our local and up island museums and, taking a tip from the late Joe Garner, “Never Fly Over an Eagles Nest”, we are keeping a box of books to sell in the trunk of the car. We sold our first one of 2016 to my sister outside the Cowichan Bay Pub where we had just had lunch. We had given her one already for a Christmas gift and she asked if we had more.
“Oh yes”, we said and whipped up the hatch back of our car and did a quick sales deal. So stop us on the street if you want to buy…we have books.
This has been a great start to our new year. I love writing and selling, so it is a great package all around.
It is Becoming Real
We got our business cards last week. Business cards with our name, our web page and the names of our books. We are in business! I love the picture on our business card. It is reproduced from the photo on our webpage. The photo is of a foggy morning in Osborne Bay and was taken by my friend Jean Ballard. Jean writes a blog featuring her photographs of animals and places around Crofton and the Chemainus Valley.
Downtime
I treated myself today. Not by shopping for clothes or stuffing down chocolate cake—I treated myself with downtime. My free time has been taken up with writing. Grant, my husband, and I are doing the finishing touches on our memoirs. Both of us leap out of bed in the middle of the night and scribble down a thought. Often in the wee hours of the morning I see the lights on in Grant’s study. Some days my head is in turmoil with scattered images and I can’t organize them into sentences. That is when I procrastinate by eating or baking.
Walking
We didn’t go anywhere this summer. Usually we take picnics to the beach, swim in the ocean, and take day trips to all the small towns up and down island. This summer we lived like moles, tucked into our respective studies, writing. I was working on my memoir Growing Up Weird and Grant was writing View From The Tower, tales of his life as an air traffic controller in Port Hardy. It was abnormally hot outside and our house was cool.
November – Off to the publisher
November is my least favourite month. Even though I am a west coast girl and don’t mind the rain, this gray, cold, eternal downpour is depressing. The south east winds are gusting and rocking my bird feeders. One lone black capped chickadee protected by the roof of the feeder is diligently pecking at the seeds. A prayer flag hung nearby startles with its splash of bright yellow and red. On my porch, small mauve pansies bloom in pots already plumped with daffodils waiting for spring. There is hope.
And in the warmth of our home we celebrate Grant’s accomplishment in finalizing his west coast aviation memoirs. View From The Tower is at the publishers now and will be available soon on this web page and at Volume One Books in Duncan.
All is well.
Freddie
I thought I saw Freddie on the Sea Walk the other day. I was quite far away but it looked like him as he was standing at a slight tilt with arms clasped behind his back. He was gazing out at the marina, perhaps at the great blue heron that owns that spot of shore line. My steps quickened momentarily and then I remembered. Freddie was dead.
