Recent recipient of the One Book One Kootenay (OBOK) 2012 author award, Rita Moir, will be stopping in to speak at the Fernie Heritage Library Thursday night.
OBOK is a public library supported, region wide book club that celebrates the many writers living and working in the Kootenay Boundary. Library users throughout the Kootenays voted to select Moir’s fourth book, The Third Crop, as the winner of this year’s OBOK award.
The Kootenay author received help from archivists across Canada to create the historical journey she depicts of the Slocan Valley from the 1800’s to the early 1940’s. However it was her long-time involvement in the area that helped her seek out the rare and previously unpublished photos that help bind the book together.
Moir moved to Vallican in the Slocan Valley when she was 23, and has worked for the Nelson Daily News, Images – Kootenay Women’s Paper, the Globe and Mail, and CBC Radio. She’s also a founder of the Slocan Valley Seniors Housing Society, caretaker for the Vallican Whole Community Centre, and volunteers for the Dumont Creek Burial Society.
As part of the OBOK book tour, Moir will spend the month of October visiting libraries all across the Kootenay region to talk about the process she went through to create The Third Crop.