Howard White's introductory remarks for Rowland Lorimer receiving the 2008 Gray Campbell Award:

I first got to know Rowly in a completely serendipitous way. It had nothing to do with books. After a brief, unproductive exposure to higher learning at UBC, I moved back to the bush in 1970 and found it crawling with hippies. They were mostly from the US except for one group that was from Winnipeg. They had all been to the U of M together and they all knew this guy Rowly. As I got to know them better, I heard more about this friend who had deigned to turn on, tune in and drop out and was still off somewhere unpleasant beating the books and pursuing a career in the social sciences. There was quite a debate about whether he should be admired or pitied. The general consensus was that he was a nice guy and a bright guy but his energies were being sadly misdirected.

This was not unlike the reaction of the publishing community 20 years later when Rowly turned up in Vancouver wanting to start the centre for publishing.

I often wondered what made Rowly such a determined supporter of books and all the processes associated with their making. A lot of people were tempted to link it to his brother Jim, who is reputed to have made the first Canadian book with pages of moosehide back in the days before the Canada Council. I never gave this thesis much credit because I know the Lorimers are typical brothers, which does not support the assumption that if brother one does a thing, the likelihood of brother two doing the same thing is in any way increased. Quite the opposite. There's got to be a better explanation.

One day back when the BEC used to be the CBA and it used to occasionally set up in places like Winnipeg, I discovered that better explanation. A very chatty middle aged lady showed up at our booth and started talking my leg off. She was wearing the wrong colour of tag, a seller, not a buyer, but she was the only warm body I'd had at our booth all day so I was happy to let her talk. It turned out there wasn't much she didn't know about the Canadian publishing scene--a lot more than me-and she spoke of it in a motherly kind of way, as if all these struggling publishers were her own wayward children. I hadn't sold a book in two days and was quite ready to be mothered. She immediately took pity on me and straightened out my display, explained the role of the catalogue at book fairs and other basics that were lacking in my approach at that time, and offered to be my distributor in Winnipeg. This was Mrs. Lorimer, mother of Rowly and Jim. Ever since meeting her I have never been in any doubt where both Rowly and Jim got the idea that books are something worth devoting your life to.

Rowly of course did it his way. Rowly is a thinker. He is such a thinker that sometimes his thoughts come out all piled one on top of the other and ordinary mortals trying to keep can start to feel a little like Charlie Chaplin on the assembly line in Modern Times. He is also an enabler and a networker who works collaboratively so his hand doesn't always show in the initiatives he starts. I am not sure exactly what role he played in rescuing the Book and Magazine summer school from Banff and establishing in Vancouver, but I think it's safe to say if he hadn't been here it probably wouldn't have happened. When he first started talking about a centre for publishing studies here a lot of the more bloody minded publishers (a description which doesn't leave out many publishers) kind of looked askance. Publishers generally feel if there is ten spare cents and ten spare minutes it should go directly into their own publishing program. The big picture is saved for the annual retreat, but unfortunately we are too busy making more books to go to the retreat, so the big picture gets lost. But when the system falters or we need to deal with a new government that thinks culture should be self-financing, we find ourselves in desperate need of someone who understands the big picture and who can articulate that picture to the world. Since 1989 he wrote his first of many book publishing studies, "Book Publishing Publishing in BC";, that someone, at least here in BC, has been Rowly Lorimer. And the publishing Centre he envisioned and primarily built out here on the western frontier has made has already had a profound impact on Canadian book publishing, though that is nothing to the impact it will have in time.

There are not too many ways that the Canadian publishing landscape can be said to have changed for the better in the past 20 years, but Rowly in his genial, unobtrusive but persistent way has been responsible for a major one.

Of course, we in the book world only see one facet of Rowly's many-faceted career. Books are just one of his hobbies. He has also taken a vigorous interest in magazine publishing, and has had a hand in a helping them move into the online world. If you've ever looked up a BC author on ABC Bookworld, you have benefited from this innovative work. In his day job he has forged a distinguished scholarly career in communications and Canadian studies, writing fifty papers, 30 commissioned reports, five books and editing scholarly journals in various fields.

I was a little alarmed a few years ago when I noticed Rowly's formidable energies start to be diverted into the winemaking business, but I was reassured lately to learn that he had cut back on his grape growing activities. He said he found the profit margin too thin to hire the help he needed to do the necessary work. I know the publishers in the room are all saying to themselves, "what's so bad about that?"; But that just goes to show why we need a guy like Rowly.

Congratulations, Rowly on receiving the Gray Campbell Award for 2008. Your mom would be proud.

-- author and publisher Howard White