David Leach: Kibbutzing Your ‘Hood’
A kibbutz, in Hebrew, means simply ‘a gathering’. David Leach talks about how contemporary communities in British Columbia, Canada and beyond can learn from the successes (and mistakes) of the kibbutz movement.
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“David Leach moved to Victoria to study creative writing and literature, where he eventually discovered a passion for wilderness travel around Vancouver Island and British Columbia.
After UVic, he completed a Master’s degree in English at Queen’s University and began moonlighting as a freelance writer while teaching ESL in the Czech Republic and composition back in B.C. He later worked as the Arts Editor of Victoria’s Monday Magazine and the Managing Editor of explore: Canada’s Outdoor Magazine in Toronto.
David’s freelance writing has included humour articles, personal profiles, arts reviews, investigative journalism, and first-person travelogues, and has appeared in a variety of national and international publications. Travel-writing assignments led David to kayak through polar–bear country and try to mountain–bike over the Andes, and many of these features have been republished in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
David continues to teach journalism and creative non-fiction as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing at the University of Victoria. He is also a contributing editor for explore and Financial Post Business magazines. He received a Western Magazine Award for arts and culture, won a Northern Lights Award for Travel Journalism and been anthologised in Way Out There: The best of explore (GreyStone). His first book, Fatal Tide: When the race of a lifetime goes wrong, was published in Spring 2008 by Penguin Canada.
* Photograph Credit: Ben Moore
The VIDEO
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1. Blog 2. Book: Fatal Tide: When the Race of a Lifetime Goes Wrong
