While semi-retired in Penticton (where he lived from 1979 to 1988 and published his second to 14th book), inveterate self-publisher J. Alvin Speers began his own Aardvark Enterprises imprint. By 2005, he had produced more than 75 titles of his own writing, in small print runs, plus 20 other titles, having moved back to Calgary in 1988. Speers first worked as a teenage farmhand in his hometown of Orangeville, Ontario, in 1945. He joined the RCAF in Regina in 1951 and had a variety of more than twenty jobs (collection agency, auto dealership, Alberta Wheat Pool, finance company), and briefly resided in Courtenay. His title DID 4 RCMP CONSTABLES DIE IN VAIN? concerns the shooting deaths that occurred on a ranch near Mayerthorpe, Alberta, on March 3, 2005. It was followed by his own Drugstore Cowboy's Short Story Collection (2006). Two volumes of autobiography are Life of a Rolling Stone and Depression Parents of Seven.

[BCBW 2006] "Publishing"