‘Opportunity Knox’: humour columnist marks 20 years with new book
Posted October 29, 2017 12:46 pm.
Last Updated October 29, 2017 12:52 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) – A household name on Vancouver Island, Jack Knox, is celebrating 20 years of writing a humour column for the Victoria Times-Colonist with a new book.
“Opportunity Knox: Twenty Years of Award-Losing Humour Writing” is the writer’s second book. This time, the objective was to go through roughly 3,000 columns to see what would make the final cut.
“I asked myself two questions: does it still stand up and is it funny? Will it make people laugh? And those were the only two criteria,” Knox tells NEWS 1130. “So I didn’t worry about whether it was from Vancouver Island. I didn’t care about whether it was from Victoria. It was just… it is going to make them life?”
But some of the funniest writings comes from his readers, letters he lovingly calls “nastygrams”.
“I don’t mind a rant because they can actually be a bit validating. I don’t like thoughtful, accurate criticism. I hate it when people are polite and right, because they just make me feel guilty!”
Knox says he never set out to be a humour writer. Two decades ago he was the City Editor.
“It was kind of a meat-grinder of a job, you’re the boss of the reporters. So, just for fun one day I decided to write a humour column and it was well-received, so I wrote another one and then another one and next thing you know I was a full-time columnist about 17 years ago.”
Part of his style is taking mundane, everyday observations and applying them to imaginary characters and inanimate objects.
“So, I write about the Barbie doll having a midlife crisis and Archie from the Archie comics, you know, having to decide to marry Veronica after the economic meltdown of 2008.”
“Opportunity Knox: Twenty Years of Award-Losing Humour Writing” is in stores now.
