Why write in the first place, other than your grocery list? Eric Nicol believes it’s the second-most satisfying thing you can do lying down. But it’s not enough to want to write. You must need to write.
Now, after more than seventy years of scribbling – he wrote for the school newspaper at Lord Byng High School in Vancouver, British Columbia – Eric holds forth on dangling participles, punctuation, and literary jargon. What’s more, he answers the burning question: "How much should creative writers depend on editors to correct their grammar?"
Then Eric provides a wide selection of essays to demonstrate how it’s done. These include a dramatic demonstration of the chutzpah of a big Tom wild turkey and its harem on a B.C. Gulf Island, the discovery that Eric’s one-way-view window in the bathroom has been installed incorrectly, the trials and tribulations of computers and the creative process, and a riposte to the query, "Are nipples really necessary on guys?"
Pure Nicol. Minted in Canada. Priceless!

Eric Nicol (1919-2011) was one of Canada's most beloved humourists. He was born December 28, 1919 in Kingston, Ontario, the son of William Nicol and Amelia Mannock Nicol. His family moved to Vancouver, BC in 1921, and - with the exception of a few years in Nelson, BC - Nicol spent the rest of his childhood there. He received his B.A. from the University of British Columbia in 1941 and then completed three years service (RCAF) during World War II. After the war, Nicol returned to UBC for his M.A. in French Studies ('48) and spent one year in doctoral studies at Sorbonne. He then moved to London, England to write radio comedy series for Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly of the BBC from 1950-51. Nicol had started to write occasional columns for the Vancouver News Herald and the Vancouver Province during the war, while studying in Paris. He returned to Vancouver in 1951 to become a regular columnist with the Province, eventually producing some six thousand newspaper columns, several stage plays, more scripts for radio and television and more than thirty books - three of them winners of the Stephen Leacock Award for humour. He was the first recipient of the BC Gas Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contribution to the literary arts in 1995.

Eric Nicol's profile page