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Michael Elcock was born in Forres, Scotland and grew up in Edinburgh and West Africa. He emigrated to Canada when he was twenty-one and worked in pulp mills, in the woods as a faller, on west coast fishing boats, and as a ski instructor. Along the way he earned a B.A. and M.Ed. in comparative studies at the University of Victoria - with post-graduate studies in Quebec, Sweden, Germany, Belgium and Scotland. He was Athletic Director at the University of Victoria for ten years, before going into the field of festivals and events. He was subsequently appointed founding CEO of Tourism Victoria, before moving some years later with his wife and daughter to Andalusia to work on developing Spain’s World Expo. He has broadcast for the BBC, and published many articles on a wide variety of subjects in periodicals, newspapers, magazines and anthologies in the UK, and Canada. Michael has served on TWUC's National Council, and on the Board of Directors of Access Copyright. He now lives in Victoria, BC.
I have written books, magazine & newspaper articles, essays and stories (fiction & non-fiction) for anthologies, and given public presentations (some with PowerPoint) on subjects including Travel, Sport/Recreation, Living in Spain, the Internet ('21st Century Clearances'), Urban Renewal in the Third World, Scotland's strong women, Spirits of the Glens, Scotland's Diaspora, The Mounties' Great Trek, Map Reading, The Shepherd of Banbury (a gentle parable on Climate Change), Brushes with Greatness, Working with the Kichwa of Ecuador & the Macusi people of Guyana, and a wide range of other subjects.
Subject matter possibilities can be broad and varied or narrowly focused. They can be augmented by PowerPoint visuals if necessary. Subject talks or presentations can range from travel and tourism (upsides and downsides), to working with indigenous peoples in South America, to adapting non-fiction to fiction, to seeing the everyday (where we live) as exotic, to the difficulties of migration and life in an alien culture, to bringing alive the history of the places where we live, to event production and management (from experience of mounting festivals, working on World Expos, standard conventions and live shows with the Fruit Fly Circus, the McGarrigles, Stan Rogers, the Beatles). Any of it can be adapted to meet school & teaching requirements.
