The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Local man can now call himself `author' with release of novel By CYNTHIA GAMBLE Staff Writer Georgetown resident Jeremy Beal travelled many roads-- and railroads-- to become a published novelist with the release of his novel with a message. Johnny Kicker was released on April 15, and Beal says the book, available at all Chapters, Indigo and Coles bookstores and Amazon and Chapters websites is selling well across Canada. Coles in the Georgetown Market Place carries the novel with a sticker on the front `Local Author'. Beal will be the guest author at the Milton Chapters on Steeles Ave. this Saturday, June 4, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. He will also be a special guest author at The White Rabbit, 16 Main St. S., during opening day of the Georgetown Farmers Market on Saturday, June 11, 8 a.m. to noon. Married with two young children, the member of the Halton Hills Library Board, says the transition to novel writing was just a natural progression in his life. "I've always been a writer, and that stems from always being a reader. My parents had a house where books were stacked everywhere," he says. Once he graduated with a Humanities degree from Queen's University, and "dipped his thumbs in a lot of pies" living in every area code in Ontario, he became a CP locomotive engineer for five years. "But I was kidding myself; yeah I can do this for a while but what I really wanted to do was write," says Beal, explaining a good portion of Johnny Kicker was written sitting in a locomotive engine while waiting on railway sidings. "You have a lot of time to write sitting on a siding... The railway is not for people who are not patient ... you get a lot time to think." Then after two-year-old Sam was born he took the second half of parental leave to stay home, and when that was done he decided to take a chance on a stay-at-home writing career. He currently calls himself a publishing.com based in Vancouver, which agreed to look at it, telling him `we'll get back to you in about six weeks." Three days later, they called back. NON (Now or Never) Publishing, which ironically distributes its books through Fraser Direct of Georgetown, specializes in Canadian talents who have a message to tell. "Their focus is in the same vein as the book, so it was sort of a happy marriage," explains Beal. For Beal that message is an indictment of media manipulation of youth. "It's about a character who doesn't do or say anything of his own design. He just sort of rolls with the punches ...and it so happens he's in the public eye and they (media and the government) project their ideas onto what happens to this guy. It sets off a whole chain of reaction for a large disaster," explains Beal. The publisher's note asks is Johnny Kicker a murderer, a prophet, a scapegoat, a puppet, a degenerate, a hero, or counter-revolutionary? Beal began writing in university, with the germ of the idea for Johnny Kicker inspired by a poem written by a friend about a guy getting into a fight with a preacher and dockworker in the same night. "That just tumbled around my head for the longest time, and I sort of came up with the story piecemeal and by the time I graduated I had basically the outline done. Then I just had to sit down and write it. It took about a year. A year to find a publisher and another year to edit it," he says. "It's a real slow slogging process, which I didn't know when getting into it," says Beal, but that gave him time to come up with something he really liked. Beal is already working a second novel-- "an inverted Great Gatsby love triangle, set in Northern Ontario." "I try to say something... I'm not into fluff," says Beal. See AUTHOR, pg. 26 21 Independent & Free Press, Thursday, June 2, 2011 full-time writer, working on screenplays, writing freelance articles for the web, and is currently head writer for Puck Life, a website magazine for hockey fans. It took Beal two years to write the 204-page Johnny Kicker and submitted the whole manuscript to publisher NON Publishing, www.non- CANADIAN ROAD CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIP Thank You! Volunteer with Us! Find out how you can get involved at www.haltonhills.ca/cyclingchampionship For more information call 905-873-2601 x2273 or email volunteer@haltonhills.ca