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The Okanagan Arts Directory

William (Bill) Peckham, author, writer Address 1885 Barlee Rd. Kelowna, BC V1Y 4S3 Telephone and Fax 250-860-2420 Email Address Website http://www.neverhangwallpaper.com Affiliations Arts Council Of The Okanagan Okanagan Writers' League Categories Writing & Publishing - Writers and Storytellers

Bill began writing in 2003, at age 72. With the encouragement of his new partner, Marilyn Vaughan, he took writing courses at Okanagan College. In 2004 a mail order course from The Long Ridge Writers’ Group, in Connecticut, started him down the road to a writing career. He found he loved writing short stories... mystery, humour, and nostalgic stories. In 2006 he self-published ‘Never Hang Wallpaper With Your Wife’, a humourous and instructive look at home improvement problems, from a guy’s point of view. “Over the years I have owned two new houses and three older houses. I would have worn this book out if I had a copy then. I’ll be buying this book for friends this Christmas.” (Review by Allen Hustad for the Kelowna Daily Courier, June 5, 2007.) Bill spent over fifty years involved with home renovations, repairs and improvements as an employee in a lumber yard, talk-show radio host, host/writer of the television series ‘Don’t Move Improve’, and author of countless “how-to” articles for newspapers coast to coast in support of the home shows in which he was featured on stage. “I love to write fiction. Although Never Hang Wallpaper is non-fiction it was a labour of love and something I really had to get down on paper. There were so many stories to tell, however my first love now is fiction,” Bill says. As a result of the review of his book in the Daily Courier and talks with Managing Editor, Tom Wilson, Bill now has a column in the “Okanagan Homes” section of the Courier, the second and fourth Saturday of each month. In 2007, seventeen of his fiction stories and eleven poems, which were collecting in Bill’s computer, became another self-published book, “While You’re Waiting”. “This is an ideal book to take on a trip, a visit to the dentist or read in the bathroom–while you’re waiting,” Bill says. Asked if, at age seventy-six, he is going to slow down, he answers with a chuckle, “If having three potential novels and a larger book of short stories started in the computer is slowing down, then yes... I’ll slow down.” Besides writing he and his wife Marilyn, (yes, he did marry her in 2004), entertain at selected retirement villages and extended care homes. Marilyn plays the electronic keyboard and sings. Bill, when asked what he plays says, “Mostly the fool, but I do sing a little–a new skill Marilyn encouraged me to learn.”