1813 Welcome Trevor and Brett

Welcome Trevor and Brett
by Richard Mackie

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On behalf of the Board of the Ormsby Literary Society and our Advisory Board I’d like to welcome Trevor Marc Hughes and Brett Josef Grubisic as interim editors of The British Columbia Review for the year May 1, 2023 to May 1, 2024.

The position was made possible by a legacy from an eminent Vancouver-based scholar of early Canada and British Columbia, whose identity his family has asked me to keep anonymous. His gift allows me to take a year’s sabbatical after working steadily at the The British Columbia Review since its inception in September 2016. This is a natural opportunity to remind readers that gifts are an important part of our income. Donations, large or small, are always welcome and can be made here.

As some readers will know from recent edits to our Contact page, Trevor and Brett have been in the hot seat since May 1, with Trevor in charge of reviews of non-fiction and Brett managing, broadly, the fiction side of the journal. Specifically, Brett oversees our fiction, poetry, drama, children, and teen & young adult lists. Trevor looks after our general non-fiction, Indigenous, health & self-help, and cookbook lists. Trevor is also posting our reviews every day or two at the  journal’s front end in WordPress.

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Originally from Victoria, Trevor Marc Hughes was a freelance broadcaster at CBC Radio Vancouver from 1997-2002 and worked there on The Arts Report from 2002-2007. He explored British Columbia by motorcycle for over a decade and wrote many magazine articles as well as two books, Nearly 40 on the 37: Triumph and Trepidation on the Stewart-Cassiar Highway and Zero Avenue to Peace Park: Confidence and Collapse on the 49th Parallel, in which he combined historical non-fiction and adventure travel writing. He plans a third instalment in the series.

Recently Trevor has published two books based on the archived diaries and papers of writer, naturalist, and cinematographer Hamilton Mack Laing (1883-1982). Prefaced by an essay, Mack, the Life, published in the BC Review in 2018, the latest books are Riding the Continent (Ronsdale Press, 2019, reviewed here by Steve Koerner) and the newly-released Capturing the Summit: Hamilton Mack Laing and the Mount Logan Expedition of 1925 (Ronsdale, 2023).

Also a documentary filmmaker, Trevor has produced the films Classic & Vintage and The Young Hustler, and is working on the upcoming The North Arm. He also runs and curates The British Columbia Review’s popular new interview channel on YouTube. He lives in Vancouver with his wife, Laura, and his two sons, Michael and Marc.

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Brett Josef Grubisic was born in Rossland and now resides on Salt Spring Island. He’s also lived in Mission, Hatzic Island, Prince George, Boston Bar, Victoria, Vernon, and Vancouver. He taught English in Tokyo prior to beginning his PhD in English Literature at UBC, where he continued as a lecturer until 2021. He’s published six works of scholarship including National Plots: Historical Fiction and Changing Ideas of Canada (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2010, with Andrea Cabajsky) and five novels, including The Age of Cities (Arsenal Pulp, 2006), From Up River and For One Night Only (Now or Never Publishing, 2016), Oldness; or, the Last-Ditch Efforts of Marcus O (Now or Never, 2018), reviewed by Dustin Cole, and My Two-Faced Luck (Now or Never, 2021), reviewed by Geoffrey Morrison.

Brett has also written prolifically about films, books, and writers for the Vancouver Sun, Toronto Star, Literary Review of Canada, National Post, The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, and Xtra! His recent reviews for The British Columbia Review include books by Hazel Jane Plante, Sam Wiebe, Joseph Kakwinokanasum, Chelene Knight, Lyndsie Bourgon, Gurjinder Basran, Don LePan, and Paul Headrick.

To contact Trevor and Brett by email at The British Columbia Review:

Trevor Marc Hughes:    nonfiction[at]thebcreview.ca
Brett Josef Grubisic:    fiction[at]thebcreview.ca

For questions about advertising, donations, grants, honoraria, and finances generally you can still contact me at my Shaw address or:    ormsbyreview [at] gmail.com

I’m pleased and honoured that two writers as distinguished and productive as Brett and Trevor have agreed to contribute so substantially to The British Columbia Review.

See you next year! — Richard Mackie, May 25, 2023.

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The British Columbia Review

Editors, 2023-24: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)

Publisher: Richard Somerset Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, Maria Tippett, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster