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Cascadia Publicity
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David J. Litvak has been a professional writer for over fifteen years. He
has been a correspondent for The Jewish Post & News in Winnipeg,
The Canadian Jewish News in Toronto and The JT News in Seattle. His
articles have been published In The Globe and Mail, The Forward, The
Jewish Telegraphic Agency,The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles,
The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent,The Baltimore Jewish Times, The
Seattle Post Intelligencer and Washington Jewish Week. Samples of his
writing can be viewed at http://www.mediabistro.com/DavidJLitvak The
following article appeared in the summer 2006 issue of WordWorks, the
journal of The Federation of British Columbia Writers.
The Accidental Publicist
It was never my intention to become a publicist. It happened by
accident. Really it's true.....
I had just spent six months at a friend's house in Portland, Oregon,
writing a book about my surreal experiences in Nelson, BC a wacky
mountain town in Southeastern British Columbia. After sending my book
out to about a zillion publishers, I made my way back home to Vancouver
so that I could meet with a few of them face to face. My last meeting was
with Jo Blackmore, the owner of Granville Island Publishing, a
self-publishing house that is located appropriately enough on Granville
Island. The truth is that I didn't have enough money to self-publish my
book but I wanted to leave no stone unturned in my quest to become a
published author (which at this point, had become an obsession).
While I was waiting to meet Jo in her office, I noticed an intriguing
book on the shelf. The cover of the book featured a pair of European
refugees standing in front of what looked like the Hungarian Parliament
building in Budapest (a city that I had visited once before). I leafed
through the book for a moment and then put it back on the shelf but
made a mental note to ask about it after our meeting. A few minutes later,
Jo who is a former science teacher and art publisher, appeared. We
talked about my book and the possibilities of publishing it and then she
asked me if I had any advice about publicizing Escape From Pannonia,
the book that I had been glancing at a few minutes earlier. It was a
Holocaust love story written by Steve Floris, a Hungarian Holocaust
survivor. I started writing suggestions for her about how to publicize the
book in Seattle, Portland and Vancouver. Three pages later, she
suggested that I should do publicity for the book. I replied to her that I
would have to read it first. Well, the next day I read Steve's incredible
account of how he and his wife serendipitously survived the Holocaust
and voila, an accidental publicist was born. And being a publicist has to
some amazing places that I would never have gotten to on my own...........
(click here to see entire article)
