Straight as an Arrow
January 31, 2020
Sailboats and storms and short stories, Oh my!
Joel Scott, who wrote Arrow’s Flight and Arrow’s Fall, two entertaining nautical thrillers involving sailing was also a librarian with VIRL for 20 years. When we spoke with him he shared that he spent many years opening branches up in the northern part of BC and as much as he enjoyed his time with Vancouver Island Regional Library, he was definitely ready for a change when the time came!
What a change it was! He turned early retirement into a sailing life and sailed around the globe with his wife and son on their 41-foot ketch. While circumnavigating New Zealand, he discovered yet another passion- writing! All those years working with books as a librarian, he had always thought…perhaps someday. Armed with only pencils and foolscap paper he bided his time through hurricane season creating the character of Jared Kane, a West Coast Commercial fisherman. Upon his return to British Columbia, he sent the novel out to several publishers with little response he tucked it away. Until 2015 he was encouraged to enter the novel into the Cedric Literary Awards for unpublished B.C. Seniors and he won!
The rest, as they say, is history. He has now published two novels in the Arrow series; Arrow’s Flight and Arrow’s Fall with another slated for release this spring with the title Arrow’s Rest.
When we asked him to share his advice with those of you wanting to enter the wonderful world of writing, he simply says “I am the perfect example of just not giving up. Keep trying and do enter contests, it is never too late to write.”
