Pop quiz! How many magazine writers can you name off the top of your head? Perhaps you ‘follow’ some favourite writers?
In general, most of us remember the content of an article but not necessarily the writer.
As a long-forgotten poet once said, “I want to be like the very air you breathe; that essential, and yet unnoticed.”
Perhaps writers are the ‘essential air’ that keep a magazine alive? They prefer to remain in the background and let their words do the talking?
INSPIRED attracts writers from many diverse backgrounds but one stands out not only for his informative and humorous storytelling, but for his quiet “essentialness” to the magazine over the last 12 years.
“That travel piece by John ‘someone or other’ is the best one on Scotland I’ve ever read – I will recommend it to anyone I know planning a trip there,” offered a Scottish-Canadian retiree in Vancouver.
“I love INSPIRED Magazine and read everything in it! I especially like the cover stories written by someone with the same last name as that famous painter, Tom Thomson,” said a resident on Vancouver’s North Shore.
These fan comments just represent the tip of the iceberg of appreciation for one of INSPIRED’s most frequent contributors, former TV producer and now prolific writer of ‘creative non-fiction,’ John Thomson.
He has written over 75 articles for INSPIRED over the last 12 years – 36 of them being the ‘cover story’ sharing the inspirational stories of so many flourishing boomers!
Recently the magazine publisher asked John to step out of his usual preferred role as the interviewer to become one of these inspirational people in his own right.
John recalls in his travel piece “Scotland Calling” (INSPIRED May 2022) coming as a young boy of six from his birth country Scotland to Canada, the ‘Promised Land.’
Growing up in Winnipeg he began to get the same yearning as many other young creative-minded Canadian teens of the time – a yearning to see beyond the fence and, in particular, to go to UCLA for film studies.
The non-resident fees were unaffordable, so the local art school seemed like an acceptable alternative to this young man drawn to be creative.
As many readers of INSPIRED will recall, the1960’s and 1970’s was a time when young graduates with a Bachelor’s degree in practically any subject seemed to secure jobs in whatever field they set their minds to. The old cliché “the world’s your oyster” definitely applied to John who, with his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in hand, moved to Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto to begin a decades long career as a television news and current affairs producer.
He worked on CTV’s National News, CBC’s The Journal, CBC Vancouver’s Pacific Report (when he moved to Vancouver) and CTV’s W5. John recalls being a young journalist on Brian Mulroney’s cross country election campaign plane.
He eventually became an executive producer with educational broadcaster SCN in Saskatchewan, responsible for commissioning and overseeing a slate of original programming.
As retirement loomed in 2011 John chose to think creatively about his next steps! John knew he wanted to find ways to keep himself relevant and busy. Traditional retirement wasn’t in the cards.
It was now time to get into actually writing for print media about the many topics that interested him. He found it an easy transition from television to print as the interviewing technique is the same – listen and engage.
In addition to INSPIRED, John writes for two art magazines and a history blog, linking back to his university passions.
His initial stories for INSPIRED helped him share knowledge about services relevant to the magazine’s demographic.
He shared his own personal struggles in securing 24-7 in-home care for his widowed mother residing in Calgary. As a ‘chain-smoker,’ going to a non-smoking care home was not in the cards for his mom. Those early stories of struggling to get the right care resonated with many readers going through the ‘caring for elderly parents’ phase of life.
Having had a whole career enthusiastically telling people’s stories, moving on to writing inspirational cover stories for the magazine was an obvious next step. With a humorous twinkle in his eye, John’s easy, friendly, charming manner can quickly and skilfully tease out the deeper story of a person’s current passion and its fulfillment before they even know they’ve begun to disclose it.
What has John most enjoyed about telling these stories?
Smiling, he says,“They’re an antidote to all the negative news in the world; in an age of extreme anxiety, it’s calming. All the interviewees are incredible people accomplishing amazing things in the world, each in their own way. Life is hard enough; many of these folks have overcome adversity and just keep pushing ahead. Each one of them is truly inspirational. These stories make me feel like the “Good News Guy.”
“I have found my own voice.”
In TV, John says, he was trained to be objective, neutral, and balanced.
“With INSPIRED, a big positive is that I can allow a bit of my own personality to come through – Bill Bryson-like*. I can be more chatty. It’s a public narrative but it’s my own. Plus, I like the immediacy of working with a smaller team of writer and editor.”
John is married to a novelist and screenwriter with a successful and still very active career of her own. As he and his wife begin to think ahead to their next “Big-O birthdays” and new decades, John hopes to take advantage of their current good health and travel more.
Japan is top of his list…though it might be another trip to Australia to see family in Adelaide and another visit to Melbourne, a city he has come to love (INSPIRED February 2021).
They may return to Norway having felt they just scratched the surface there in 2022.
Locally, kayaking – a pandemic-era coping activity – also adds to John’s gratitude for life in Canada and all the opportunities it has given him and his own children.
He feels he’s in a great space at the moment.
Worries in the media about AI making writers obsolete don’t faze him. He says he’s used AI for research but doesn’t believe AI will ever totally replicate the personal point-of-view of a skilled writer. He believes he will keep on writing forever.
Meanwhile, ever in the search for newness in his life story, memoir has entered his repertoire.
What next? That will be his story to tell….
*Bill Bryson – author of numerous travelogues, often with a humourous slant.