Jim Creighton is happy that his made up characters won’t bother him at night anymore.
No, Creighton is not crazy. Instead he is a local fiction writer who is debuting his first published collection of short stories called eLKFallsbC comic imaginations of a coastal town.
Creighton said the characters he created were always on his mind while he was writing, and he’s excited to finally be able to share them with the public.
“They’re out of my head and into a book, so they don’t bother me incessantly at night,” Creighton said with a smile.
“It feels very good. I’m very happy that the characters in this book have come alive and continue to live,” he added.
Creighton will be at Still Water Books at 2 p.m. on Saturday to release the book and read a couple of excerpts. Five hundred copies were printed and will be for sale at the book store.
Although it’s a collection of short stories, the same characters appear throughout which links the stories together. And the book has a strong local flavour.
Set in the fictitious town of Elk Falls, B.C., Creighton called it “next door to Campbell River.”
“It has the flavour of a coastal town on Vancouver Island with all the fishing, and logging, and tourism, and all the other stuff that goes on,” explained Creighton.
He said local people have already asked him if certain characters are based on them, and Creighton’s answer is no. While he said they are made up of a composite of all the people he has ever met in his life, the characters in his stories are completely fictional.
The book is set in modern times but with an old time feel to it, according to Creighton.
“These are the comings and goings of this little town, and how they want to try to be very modern and up to date… the attitude of the town is old even though they’re living in 2011,” he said.
And while the stories are humourous they also touch on serious issues. An example is a story about a local drunk who is called the invisible man because the community can’t see him.
The collection also has some supernatural elements, including a character called Bill the Ghost.
Creighton considers himself a “closet writer,” and has written other short stories as well as some poetry that he did not publish. He said he believes people will respond well to this collection.
“I feel very excited and I feel very confident because I read a lot and I write a lot, and I consider this a genuine contribution to canadian literature,” said Creighton.
