During the mid '70s I wrote a bylined series for The Welland Tribune while picking up credits in Psychology, Sociology and English from Niagara College. After moving to Toronto in 1977, I earned a graphic arts certificate from George Brown and worked for many years as an illustrator and advertiser.
In the eighties I joined J. Walter Thompson as head of their new PC Department where I combined my knowledge of advertising with my skill as a programmer to provide applications development and support to nearly two hundred users across Canada. When the department was out-sourced in 1992 I took technical-writing contracts from such companies as DeBeers and Command Data.
From its second issue, I was assignment editor for The Outrider, Ontario's first newspaper for the homeless. There I worked with Rod Goodman (former editor and ombudsman with the Toronto Star) and Janice Hayes (news copy editor with The Globe and Mail). During this time I also wrote a column entitled "Ad Nauseam" which, under the pretense of advertising review, satirized media and politics (see V8 Juice and Canadian Unity).
The Outrider folded in a relatively public fashion, and Lee Oliver tells the story with much relish, and some accuracy, in The Ryerson Review of Journalism Spring, 1995. (It should be noted, however, that while Oliver mentions a David Paddon as being assignment editor, the fact is no one on staff had ever heard of him before publication of the article, and I'm sure I'd noticed if he'd been sitting at my desk.)
Following the demise of The Outrider, I returned to the University of Toronto as a part-time student where I spent the next six years earning my BA in English.
During most of this time I worked as Senior Staff Writer and sub-editor at the popular community magazine, What's On Queen, where I provided monthly coverage of Queen Street's eclectic culture: its history, arts, theatre, literature and music. I met and interviewed many of Queen Street's (and Toronto's) more notable personalities including Linda Griffiths, Michael Hollingsworth, Robert Berlin, Menno Krant, Milton Jewell, and Dorothy Cameron.
I also co-founded the prestigious Celtic Curmudgeon: Arts & Entertainment Review, through which I began my association with the Canadian Bookseller's Association's (CBA) trade show. There I regularly met with publishing representatives, and interviewed visiting authors like Ian Rankin, Maeve Binchy and Colin Wilson. Curmudgeon's inaugural issue was covered by CBC news.
This picture is from the 2001 Canadian Booksellers' Association Trade Show. In the centre is Tatiana helping to promote Eric Walters' newest "Tiger" book, Tiger by the Tail. That's Eric on the right dressed in black, and Vernon (Tatiana's trainer) in white on the left. In the centre is my lovely wife and co-editor Barbara. The guy with the deer-in-the-headlights expression, is me.
In 2000 I was offered the position of Managing Editor for the Circa2000 Time Capsule, an interesting experiment aimed at archiving various unusual and interesting Web sites and offering them for download as a virtual time capsule. Our public interface was an online magazine, Circa2000, featuring topics of Web-related interest.
During that time I also created Editor's Sidebar, an information resource aimed at journalists in Ontario's smaller urban markets. It was received with appreciation and many warm welcomes from various editors across the province. The Canadian Press Club linked to it, the award-winning newspaper designer Tony Sutton submitted articles, and the Canadian Community Newspaper Association wrote about it in The Publisher.
Presently I am a professor at George Brown College teaching various English courses (College English, Professional Communications).
I am also a columnist for the Metaverse Messenger, a newspaper covering the growing virtual world of Second Life. For a year, under the pseudonym Holman Tibbett, I wrote a weekly column called "The Walkin' Dude" about my continuous hike across the world's continents and the people I met along the way. I now cover news dealing with virtual worlds and have revived my Ad Nauseam column to examine the many challenges facing marketing on Web 3.0.
If you're looking for a mature, educated, writer or editor with an eye for detail and a wry sense of humour I'd be happy to hear from you. I can be reached at: christopher.robinsimpson@gmail.com
