Gentrification

In the UK the term `gentrification' was associated with the gentle transformation of someone who'd become a successful member of the merchant class. And who, despite their lowly roots, acquired, or built, a country mansion. These nouveau riche discovered and adapted to a life of privilege and learned that with privilege came, at least, local responsibility. This transformation of class has been an ongoing paradigm shift through the last five centuries, as the established - by blood lines - families were usurped by the nouveau riche. It was often the sub plot in English novels of the period. This new class of landed gentry actually became the subjects of `gentrification' as the nouveau riche of commerce became gentrified.
However, in North America, the term `gentrification' describes the process of renewal and rebuilding which accompanies the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating urban areas where they frequently displace poorer residents who cannot compete in the resulting new economy. But it can also refer to where raw land is purchased cheaply by a developer, who then transforms the purchased undeveloped area into numerous `country retreats' for the upper middle class.
This is the kind of development proposed by Ender Ilkay, a Vancouver real estate speculator, who has obtained preliminary approval to build 266 vacation homes along 17 km of the Juan de Fuca trail on Vancouver Island's South West Coast. Ender Ilkay, the speculative developer, will benefit, but what possible benefit can there to the the rugged and wild Juan de Fuca Trail? I find it difficult to comprehend how local politicians could contemplate granting preliminary approval. Are they so out of touch with the world that they only view their local area through the myopic lens of a developer?
Erecting new strata homes on the Renfrew Road, far from any ancillary infrastructure like stores and markets, in an age where the world is becoming increasingly dependent upon shrinking supplies of oil products, is extremely shortsighted. What happens in 10 years when the price of gas is over $5 per litre? Will those residents then demand bus services into Sooke?
No, we should ensure that the once logged Juan de Fuca Trail is left for all our citizens to enjoy. The world is here for all of us. We don’t need to exploit it for taxes and profit.
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An Editorial Romance

Once upon a time there was a fair damsel named Lenore who lived on the western edge of a great country, beyond the Rocky Mountains on the far side of the Salish Sea in the old city of Victoria. Lenore was a hardworking editor. Her computer keyboard often clacked ceaselessly into the night. She was renowned throughout the state, and even beyond its borders, for her diligent editing, but she realized she was lonely. So she joined the guild of local editors and there encountered many wonderful people. Lenore and some of the editors, with whom she became firm friends, met over tea and coffee every Saturday morning. They never knew who would appear at this social affair, but over the course of their first year, at least three or four editors would gather. One cold, blustery November day, Lenore arrived and sat alone until Chris, a writer and editor, joined her. He lived on the far side of the Malahat Mountain and was an infrequent visitor to the Saturday morning gatherings. No other editors braved the weather that morning. Lenore and Chris discovered they liked each other. After fate put them together that day, they started to keep company. Chris wooed Lenore with his poetry and warm eyes, and Lenore captured Chris's heart with her beauty, her winsome smile and her wisdom. They fell in love, and three months later Chris asked for Lenore's hand in marriage. Lenore accepted. In June Lenore and Chris will hold a nuptial celebration, where guests will include such fellow editors and writers as will abound like commas on a page.

Young at Heart(?)

Love poetry is probably one of the first modes that inspires us to put pen to paper. We connect with our interior selves and with another in a meaningful, almost spiritual way. We need to express that 'feeling' and so write it down.
Love poetry is often the genre for young writers who are in the throes of passionate energies that older adults do not permit to flourish in such an unbridled manner, yet love poetry has an honourable tradition.William Shakespeare's sonnets are revered, and none can doubt the romantic works of Donne, Shelley or Brooke and hosts of others.
I never expected to revisit this genre except as a reader, but recently the Universe has smiled on me and put in my path a wondrous female. I was moved and so was she. I had to write about it - that's what writers do. My poem was selected as a monthly winner at: http://www.lovepoemsandquotes.com/ and she liked it too!

Return to Diamond River Books website.

Desperate Authors

I recently heard from an author who has several books in manuscript form ready for readers. His woeful story of getting the books into his readers’ hands is quite typical. By the time I received his query, he'd already exhausted the established route of procuring an agent, and he’d received a drawerful of rejection slips from traditional book publishers. In desperation, he'd subsequently sought out “vanity” publishers, who demanded a lot of money for their layout and printing services and a large print run, and other print on demand (POD) publishers, who will print whatever the author presents, unscrupulously insisted he purchase a minimum 1000 copies of his titles.

He was persuaded to go with a POD publisher, but was badly burned. He invested over $3000 and was left with boxes of unsold, and unread, books.

His despair is not unusual.

It seems that too many commercial operations prey on writers. Each book project becomes a commercial transaction. If you can pay they will put your words into print. The author's sensibilities and painstaking and diligent work are subsumed in the process of transforming the manuscript into a product.

The designation “vanity press” has shades of depredation in its title, or perhaps more truly reflects a poor history. In the infancy of the vanity press, too many poor books were produced. Manuscripts were not edited, books were poorly designed and riddled with grammatical and spelling errors and covers looked cheap. No discussions occurred over a layout that might reflect the intent of the author. It was a service that failed to produce a quality product.

Unfortunately, the vanity press earned a long-lasting reputation, and now even the media often rejects POD books for review, regardless of their quality.

Authors believe that writing the book is the most difficult part of their project, but they are not told of the incredible stamina they need to market, promote and sell their book. Writers are rarely marketers.

If they struggle through the tangled marketing maze on their own, they are beset at every turn by commercial promotional companies who offer representational services -- for large fees -- but will not guarantee results.

At Diamond River Books, I cannot solve all authors' problems, but I do care about the quality of the books I produce. I was gratified to hear recently that a university book store took some of my published books because they didn't look like tasteless POD books.

I can personally guarantee that each book I produce is of high quality and that every effort is made to market the author, the book and the author's point of view.

Return to Diamond River Books website.

A revisitation

`World Made by Hand', a novel written by James Howard Kunstler, is where the author unleashes his imagination into the world he so deftly and convincingly explored in his best selling non-fiction book `The Long Emergency'.
In so many ways, Kunstler closes the circle on the speculative conclusions and dire prognostications inherent in `The Long Emergency.'
Kunstler tells a compelling story set `Sometime in the not-distant future . . .' and diagnoses the calamitous result of society's blind pursuit of a stable technologically driven world.
He draws us into a chaotic world after the end of oil. A world without energy, without systems, without laws, without governance and demonstrates how a small community deals with those problems through trial and error. He shows a re-emergence of a benevolent feudalism, a re-appraisal of community and cooperation and the emergence of local governance.
Kunstler's `World Made By Hand' is full of hope, despite the desperate scenario that unfolds in his imagination. It is a world where resourceful humans survive, adapt and flourish in a bountiful natural world that's so abjectly opposite to our present artificial existence.
It is a novel that should be mandatory reading for every citizen concerned about the planet's uncertain future.
This novel was acclaimed on National Public Radio as one of the top novels of 2008. There are numerous positive reviews of this novel on Amazon.

Anti Amazon

Amazon has declared a trade war against Canadian publishers who wish to use Kindle. As a publisher I was impressed when Amazon announced with great fanfare that Kindle readers were now available to Canadians. E-books only account for a small percentage of the book market but it is a growing segment and I wanted to offer my titles. Personally I prefer physical books. I love the layouts, the paper and the designs. I can’t see readers forsaking physical books en masse to use the latest technology, but for transit commuters, airplane passengers etc., I acknowledge that e-books have a place.
The kindle E-books can use Kindle downloads from Amazon. They are cheap compared to a paper and print book but few Canadian titles are available as Kindle downloads, there are even fewer South African titles, or Australian titles because for a publisher to make Kindle e-book formats available through Amazon, they must have a US Bank Account. A US dollar bank account in Canada does not suffice, it has to be a US dollar bank account physically located within the United Sates.I have located another retail platform which not only offers Kindle e-book downloads, but also has formats for the iPhone, iPod Touch, Sony Reader and IRex Iliad. So I’d suggest that you visit http://www.smashwords.com/ and boycott Amazon. I am testing my first title, The Mercedes Variation, on smashwords, you can even sample up to 20% of the book free before you decide to download the entire book.

Planetary Depression

I have a planetary depression. I have tried to live in harmony with the environment nearly all my life. When I came to British Columbia I wanted to see the `Carmanah Giants’. These extraordinary Sitka spruce dwarf the man made high rises on Vancouver Island. If you ever want to experience the awe of the planet, visit them. But this is not a story about these trees. To see them I had to drive on logging roads. My route went through an immense clear-cut valley. I had never before seen industrial logging on this scale. The valley was a cemetery of tombstone stumps. The devastation was so complete, I wondered if bombs had been dropped.
My mind was so revolted, my stomach threw up.
I was instantly converted from an environmental sympathizer, to an eco-warrior. The pen became my sword. I became a dedicated environmentalist.
I spent a summer living among the majestic trees of the Walbran Valley. I wrote reports for any print media that would print them. I watched the struggle of activists on blockades. They were determined to prevent international timber companies from desecrating our forests. One night I slept in a clear cut to prevent timber workers and police from dismantling a blockade. My horizon was unobstructed. The forest had been felled to become wood for U.S. and Asian industry. The stars were my ceiling. I’d grown accustomed to canopied skies where stars blinked through treetops. In a clearcut, this was like a prairie sky loaded with stars.
But, eventually the demonstrations, the blockades, the arrests, the stories and the lobbying were a success. British Columbia now has the Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park.

So, over the years, I’ve been keenly aware of the background noise about the planet’s plight. I never did agree with economists who stated that violent plundering of the earth would be to our benefit. I remain convinced that our dedication to consumerism has caused the exploitation and devastation of the planet. I’ve been a Gaiaist for years; I’ve read all of James Lovelock’s books, including his latest and probably last – he’s now in his nineties - The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning.
Lovelock’s conclusions are depressing. Even David Suzuki doesn’t embrace them. But I’ve also read James Kunstler’s book, The Long Emergency. Kunstler wrote this book in 2005 and many of his predictions have come to pass. We have not progressed to the depths of his creative foretelling in, World Made by Hand but I have more faith in these forecasts than in the spun statements expounded by politicians with short term re-election agendas. Their words might comfort, if they were believable.
So, where can we go for comfort? I cannot suggest a solution, but I can indicate a new direction. I found this direction by hearing Wade Davis’s Massey Lectures and reading his book, The Wayfinders. Davis points out that Western culture developed on a singular technological path, while other cultures revere our planet and its origins. Davis, as an anthropologist, shows us belief systems that have survived the onslaught of corporatism and technology. He illustrates with examples of civilizations that have the same mental acuity, the same intellectual capacity but have developed without the technological advances of Western societies. These cultures have extremely sophisticated beliefs but have spiritual, not technological, solutions to our universe.
Davis’s conclusions are reinforced by my recent reading of Edward Berry’s, The Sacred Universe. Berry believes that mankind once had great respect for the earth, but now is alienated from it. In Western culture we are assured that modern technologies hold all the answers. Mankind’s present predicament underlines the absurdity of that belief, but Berry believes that by marrying the sacred to the practical mankind has hope.

I think he may be right.