Brian J. Pettit's short Bio
Brian Pettit grew up on a poultry farm west of Sydney, Australia. A scholarship to Wagga Wagga Teachers' College launched a career in education. His first assignment (1961) was to a fifty thousand acre sheep station in the outback where he had to build the school first before teaching in it. His experiences with the mostly Aboriginal students were the subject of his first novel, The Weilmoringle Kid.

In 1965, he and two friends sailed for Canada to 'have a look'. There, as their parents lamented, 'the boys forgot to come home'. After a year of teaching at Topley, B.C., Pettit ventured to Vancouver Island and found work setting chokers and scaling in a logging camp. He eventually moved to Nanaimo to teach and was principal of a number of elementary schools until retiring in 1997.


For his Masters degree at the University of Victoria he wrote the thesis Canadian Nationalism: With What Are We to Identify Ourselves? (1984), seen as sub-themes in his novels When The Curlew Cries (1998), Saturday's Hero (2000) and Cameron's Crossing (2006).
 
NOTE:  My father has a paypal account so purchasing his books is both easy and safe. 

DOUBLE NOTE:  His second book titled, "When a Curlew Cries" is based on a true story of the two of us returning to Australia together to track down his long lost Aboriginal students he taugh in the outback 20 something years earlier.  It's a great and very funny read.  If you want to learn about me through the eyes of my father, this is your chance!! 

 

website

B.J. Pettit
          280 Calder Road
          Nanaimo, British Columbia
          Canada V9R 6J1
          Phone/Fax: 1-250-754-4876

          email Brian Pettit