Derek Paul
As a physicist, I started to expand into domains beyond my paid work long before retirement from the University of Toronto, where I was professor for 31 years. These expansions ranged through matters of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, the dangers of plutonium, radioactive energy sources in outer space, foreign policy, climate change, the importance of male-female balance in parliaments, poverty elimination and guaranteed income, and ecological economics. My few published books began with a children’s fable written in four hours in 1988 and published in 2000 after a 10-year search for the perfect illustrator. Next, several self-published books : His and Her Verses, 2009, « Love’s Labours Regained », a four-act verse play, 2017 ; and A Leap to an Ecological Economy, 2017, 2nd edition 2020. This 2nd edition ill soon be available as an online book through WizVov Inc. I also edited a dozen books, mainly as editor for Science for Peace in Toronto (1986-2000), but also for family, including, The Collected Works of Antonia Paul, Hilton House 2010, still available in paperback, and in a limited luxury hardcover edition. The Quebec government forced me to change the name Hilton House to Maison Hilton, with the advantage that the H no longer needs to be pronounced. My most recent publication was requested by Science for Peace 20 April 2020 and was posted 27 April under the title « The Best Way Forward after COVID-19? » on their website: scienceforpeace.ca
In 2016, I took up painting in oils with Montreal artist Louis Robichaud, whose teaching has given great satisfaction. I joined the visual art section of SOTH in 2018.
In 2024, I sent a copy of A Leap to an Ecological Economy, 4th edition, to Pacific Book Review who run a literary competition annually. I entered it in the category Business, and it came in second in a long list of entries to that category. Pacific Book Reviews only announce first and second placements in the contests, and they call the runner-up “finalist.”
About the cover of A Leap to an Ecological Economy, and the work in oils, “La descente,” that gave rise to the book cover and the book title. La descente was my second work in my first course in painting in oils, at age 87. The teacher was a Montreal resident, and a well-known artist, alas now living in the Magdelene Islands. The title La descente implies that the dancer’s grand jeté was already coming down from the high point at which the legs were in a horizontal line. The date was 1978, and the young girl’s mother took the photo.
Website : www.derekleverpaul.ca