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Ron Pumphrey

Careers adventurer Ron Pumphrey was born in Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, in 1931. He was, variously and sometimes conjunctively, surface-mines labourer, amateur boxer-wrestler, salesman, journalist, editor, radio talk-show host, television news writer and amateur performer, books editor and publisher, writer and performer of three long-playing recordings (LPs). He founded two bay newspapers and two capital city monthly magazines, was a city councillor, a commercial investigator, a minister, and perhaps the province’s first private public relations man (“PR With RP”). A lifelong student, he was a certificate holder in beginners’ law, in coastal navigation, and in writing, and the motivational sciences. He had studied in day schools, night schools, nighttime universities at home, on the mainland, and in the United States.

Noted as a hard-working, hard-playing individualist, Ron worked in Jamaica with the Kingston Daily Gleaner (where his sense of humour resulted in his getting a job when literally none was available), was for a short time a stringer for the New York Times, and, in Toronto, was a full-time employee variously with the Stock Exchange, Dun and Bradstreet, Flash Newsmagazine, and British United Press. His hobbies were educational pursuits, political and other news analyses, philosophy, and watching his weight come and go.

His children (by his late wife, Nellie Dwyer of Bell Island) were Heather, Ron Jr., Helen “Nellie,” Steve, John, Shawn, and Ian, who lived in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Yukon, and Denmark. He lived with his wife and companion of thirty-two years, writer-activist Marilyn Tephi Duffett, in a cottage built onto (not into) the slope of a high hill, in Quidi Vidi Village, hard by Ye Olde Inn which kept his favourite brew on order. He spent the first dollar bill there, when “the tav” opened in 1977. It’s in a glass-fronted frame on a wall near the bar.

Ron Pumphrey passed away on January 8, 2019, in St. John’s, NL.


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About Flanker Press
Turning pages since 1994

Flanker Press is a bright spark in the Newfoundland and Labrador publishing scene. As the province’s most active publisher of trade books, the company now averages twenty new titles per year, with a heavy emphasis on regional non-fiction and historical fiction.

The mission of Flanker Press is to provide a quality publishing service to the local and regional writing community and to actively promote its authors and their books in Canada and abroad.

Now located in Paradise, Flanker Press has grown from a part-time venture in 1994 to a business with eight full-time employees. In the fall of 2004, Flanker Press launched a new imprint, Pennywell Books. This imprint includes literary fiction, short stories, young adult fiction, and children’s books.

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Flanker Press Ltd.
Unit #1 1243 Kenmount Road, Paradise, NL              A1L 0V8
Canada

TF: 1.866.739.4420

Tel: 709.739.4477

Fax: 709.739.4420


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Book Launch - Hard Cases by Gareth Mitton - Chapters St. John's, Saturday, Oct. 19

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Flanker Press and Rink Rat Productions are excited to announce that the Operation book series by Helen C. Escott has been optioned for film and television!
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Love Our Local Authors Month - February 2024

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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 157 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.