“Public Intellectual” Honored

Author, historian and publisher Alan Twigg has been awarded the 2007 Jack and Doris Shadbolt Fellowship for the Humanities. As a result, Twigg is currently organizing a conference focusing on British Columbia’s book culture. It will be held at Simon Fraser University in September.

“I’m organizing Reckoning 07 as a way to put our literary wagons in a circle,” Twigg said recently. “We’ll be celebrating what we’ve collectively achieved in British Columbia, but also looking at some of the sobering aspects of our future as a community that includes booksellers, librarians and media personnel.”

Twigg has been a big part of that achievement. “Twigg works at the interface between literature and publishing,” says John Pierce, SFU’s dean or arts. “He is very much a public intellectual.”

As owner and publisher of BC Bookworld -- “Canadas largest circulation publication about books” -- Twigg has been at the center of the province’s vital and growing publishing industry for several decades. As well, Twigg is the author of 13 books, including Understanding Belize: A Historical Guide.

Twigg’s newest book, Full-time: A Private Investigation of Soccer, will be published next month.