Publisher-turned-author Douglas Gibson will spend an evening here relating stories and anecdotes about some of Canada¹s favourite writers.
Gibson is bringing his one-man stage show, Stories About Storytellers, to the Fergus Grand Theatre Oct. 1, presented by Roxanne¹s Reflections Book and Card Shop and the Elora Writers’ Festival.
A longtime editor and publisher, Gibson got to know, work with, and publish works by some of Canada’s top writers, like Alice Munro, W.O. Mitchell, Peter C. Newman, Mavis Gallant, Alistair MacLeod, Peter Gzowski and others.
He wrote a book about his experiences in publishing, Stories About Storytellers, and then turned it into a stage show that he has performed almost 100 times across the country.
He presented some highlights at this year’s Elora Writers’ Festival in May, and Writers’ Festival committee member Roxanne Beale decided to invite him back to the area.
“I thought he was just so captivating,” she said.
“And I wanted to hear the stories about the authors I didn’t get to.
“Even if you haven’t heard of him, you’ve heard of the authors he’s going to be talking about.”
Gibson used his experiences touring the show as the basis for a second book, Across Canada by Story, which features new stories about Robertson Davies, Jack Hodgins, W.O. Mitchell, Alistair MacLeod, and Alice Munro, and adds lively portraits of Al Purdy, Marshall McLuhan, Margaret Laurence, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Margaret Atwood, among others.
As editorial director and later publisher of Macmillan of Canada, Gibson was noted for negotiating Mavis Gallant’s first Canadian publishing deal, as well as working with Robertson Davies, Bruce Hutchison, Jack Hodgins, Alice Munro and Morley Callaghan.
During the Writers’ Festival appearance, he talked about encouraging Munro, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature, to return to short stories, rather than continue to strive for the novel her publisher at the time was asking for.
Moving to McClelland and Stewart in 1986, he became publisher and later president, and also created his own imprint, Douglas Gibson Books, which has published Terry Fallis novels, political works and memoirs.
Stories About Storytellers, An Evening with Douglas Gibson starts at 8pm at the Fergus Grand Theatre. Tickets are available through the theatre box office 519-787-1981 or at www.fergusgrandtheatre.ca. For more information about Gibson, see douglasgibsonbooks.com.
