A trio of Oak Bay authors are featured in the Greater Victoria Public Library’s third Emerging Local Authors Collection.
With a dynamic range of fiction and nonfiction books, the 2017 collection boasts 147 self-published, independent and small press print works by 114 authors from the Greater Victoria region. Oak Bay authors – Nancy Pekter, Robert Harwood and Larry Earnhart – star in the collection and have their works on display for one year at the Central Branch location.
Harwood appreciates seeing his 2015 book I Went Down to St. James Infirmary included. He spent years exploring the mysterious origins and adaptations of the 20th century jazz-blues song, “St. James Infirmary.”
“I was delighted to be part of [the collection] – it’s a good, strong and efficient system and for local authors to be able to have their work in there is a delight,” Harwood said.
“[The book] delves into the music and the variations of the music – the way the song evolved from pre-twentieth century songs, but also the social world in which it became popular, that being New York, Chicago, New Orleans,” Harwood said. “It’s a bit of a long-ranging exploration in which historical figures become characters in the book.”
Pekter’s 2016 novel, The Path to Kitty Islet, is an intimate historical saga which follows the journey of Minnie and her best friend Emily from London to Grande Prairie to Victoria.
“What inspired me to write it is a combination of family stories and a lot of family storytellers,” Pekter said. The story first found its way to paper when she took a graduate level writing course at the University of Alberta. “There was a story there … it just couldn’t be crammed into a short story.”
Outside her time at the University of Alberta, Pekter has lived in Victoria her whole life. When she returned to Victoria after graduating, she launched into a full-time teaching career at St. Margaret’s School. The Path to Kitty Islet became an approximate seven-year undertaking.
“[The novel] is based in large part on what actually happened to my great grandmother. She came from England to Grand Prairie and then to Victoria,” she said. “It loomed so large in her mind and in her past that she told all her grandchildren about it.”
The Path to Kitty Islet is not the story of Pekter’s great grandmother, but uses the same framework populated by fictional characters.
The Profit Machine: Putting the Five Parts of Profit to Work is written Earnhart of Alchemy Business Consulting. Earnhart has worked with Oak Bay businesses for the past four years and published his book in 2014 as a way to further assist his clients and any other entrepreneurs looking to gain profit insight.
“It’s something I thought was important to get out to people,” Earnhart said. “When I’m talking to folks about their businesses, I find they focus on other things and forget the things that affect the bottom line.”
As a coach, Earnhart aims to help businesses become profitable. “I run into a lot of people who are afraid of numbers. [The book] helps people be a little more comfortable with business reports and how to actually focus on those things that make your business successful.”
The Profit Machine covers five major components of business which can affect profit.
“I think it’s worthwhile to have local people have direct access to it,” Earnhart said. “The library is a really important way to give anybody access to material like this.”
I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, The Path to Kitty Islet and The Profit Machine are on prominent display this year at the Greater Victoria Public Library Central Branch, 735 Broughton St.
