Silver Donald Cameron

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Silver Donald Cameron bigraphy, stories - Journalists

Silver Donald Cameron : biography

1937 –

Silver Donald Cameron C.M., ONS, Ph.D., D.C.L., D.Litt. (born June 21, 1937) is a prolific and highly acclaimed Canadian journalist, author, playwright and university teacher whose writing focuses on social justice, nature and the environment. His 15 books of non-fiction deal with everything from history and politics to education and community development. An avid sailor, Cameron has written several books about ships and the sea. He is the author of a young-adult novel and a thriller, both set in Nova Scotia where he has lived for more than 40 years. Two of his books, The Education of Everett Richardson (1977) and The Living Beach (1998) are included in Atlantic Canada’s 100 Greatest Books.Adams, Trevor and Clare, Stephen Patrick. (2009) Atlantic Canada’s 100 Greatest Books (2009) Halifax: Nimbus Publishing. The Living Beach ranked 35th, pp. 96-97, while The Education of Everett Richardson ranked 47th, pp. 120–121.

Cameron’s only stage play, The Prophet at Tantramar, is about Leon Trotsky’s month-long confinement in a prisoner-of-war camp in Amherst, Nova Scotia. That play was also produced as a radio drama, one of more than 50 Cameron wrote for both CBC Radio and CBC Television. In addition, he has produced radio and television documentaries. His magazine articles number in the hundreds and his newspaper columns have appeared in the Globe and Mail and the Halifax Chronicle Herald. He has also written extensively for provincial and federal government departments as well as for corporate and non-profit clients. Cameron’s latest project involves a series of in-depth interviews with environmental thinkers, writers and activists that appear as videos on a subscription website called The Green Interview. Interviewees include Vandana Shiva, Farley Mowat, James Lovelock, Jane Goodall and David Orton. Cameron has also written and narrated two documentary films for The Green Interview, Bhutan: The Pursuit of Gross National Happiness (2010) and Salmon Wars: Salmon Farms, Wild Fish and the Future of Communities (2012).

Cameron has served as Writer-in-Residence at two universities in Nova Scotia as well as at the University of Prince Edward Island. He was Dean of the School of Community Studies at Cape Breton University and has taught at Dalhousie University, the University of British Columbia and the University of New Brunswick. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of London.

His writing and journalism have earned him numerous awards including the Evelyn Richardson Award, the Atlantic Provinces Booksellers Award and the City of Dartmouth Book Award. One of his television dramas won a Best Short Film award and he has earned four National Magazine Awards as well as two awards for his corporate writing. In 2012, Cameron received both the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia. McLeod, Paul. "Wadih Fares, Silver Donald Cameron awarded Order of Canada". Halifax Chronicle Herald, 29 June 2012 He is married to the writer, Marjorie Simmins and is the father of five adult children from two previous marriages. He divides his time between Halifax and D’Escousse, Cape Breton.

Notable books

The Education of Everett Richardson

In 1977, Silver Donald Cameron published The Education of Everett Richardson: The Nova Scotia Fishermen’s Strike 1970–71. Portions of the book had previously appeared in three Canadian magazines, Maclean’s, Saturday Night and The Mysterious East. Cameron, Silver Donald. (1977) The Education of Everett Richardson: The Nova Scotia Fishermen’s Strike 1970–71. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

Everett Richardson was one of 235 trawlermen from the tiny ports of Canso, Mulgrave and Petit de Grat who fought for better pay, safer working conditions, job security and most of all, for the right to belong to the union they had chosen, the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union led by Homer Stevens, a member of the Communist Party of Canada. Their main adversaries were two, huge, foreign-owned fishing companies. The fishermen also faced stiff opposition from what Cameron calls the "cod aristocracy," rich members of the Nova Scotia elite, as well as from leading politicians, judges, government bureaucrats, members of the clergy, the province’s main daily newspaper, and the Canadian labour establishment itself. "In the end," Cameron writes, "this is not a story of the fishermen, or even of the labour movement. It is a story about privilege and poverty and injustice in this country, and about the social and political arrangements which cheat and oppress most Canadians, which stunt our humanity and distort our environment."