(This site is currenlty under renovation)

I’m an independent  author, journalist and visual journalist, based in Kitimat, British Columbia, Canada.

Robin Rowland is an author, playwright, nature photographer and visual journalist who lives, writes and works in Kitimat (“A Wonder of Nature and Industry”) on the northwestern coast of British Columbia, Canada, in the traditional territory of the Haisla Nation..

In his creative career, Robin has mainly divided his time and focus between two different endeavours, historic  investigative journalism and science fiction and fantasy.

Books

 

 

 

 

Works in Progress My seafaring ancestors

For the past couple of years I have turned my historic investigative skills to my own seafaring ancestors, the Pennells of Topsham, Devon in England.
For centuries, the Pennells, ancestors on several lines of my father’s side were merchants, sea captains, ship builders, Royal Navy officers and privateers.
My fifth great grandfather Lovell Pennell was the captain on at least privateering voyages in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1745 he fought a battle with a Spanish galleon off Cape. St. Vincent. His son, William Pennell, was a merchant, a customs agent and a British diplomat–what today would be called a spy under diplomatic cover, first in the last days of the Napoleonic Wars and from 1817 to 1832, he spied on the South Atlantic slave trade from the largest slave port in history, Bahia, Brazil. There are so many real, astounding stories in this family that likely my research project will not be just one book but two and perhaps more. The sailing ship icon will identify blog entries that relate to my on going works in progress.

Radio Plays

In the 1980s, I wrote three radio plays for CBC Radio Drama.  A Truthful Witness,  King of the Bootleggers and Hot Coffee.  I am currently  (like every other writer) working on a screenplay.

 

 

 

Blogs

 My current occasional blog on writing and life is Robin’s Weir on this website.  The term Robin’s Weir and the graphic are based on the tale of the bard Taliesin from the Welsh Mabinogion.  The luckless Prince Elphin finds the baby bard in a salmon weir, adopts him and both become famous.

 

My photography blog is updated most frequently.