About.

This site

I originally threw this site together in Wordpress to serve as digital portfolio for some work I was trying to attract. It grew, as these things are wont, into a bit of a disaster as I never did take the time to stop and plan it out properly. Eventually I just put up a banner referencing the shoemaker’s barefoot children and started ignoring it.

Given all the free time afforded by the thing that is/was the 2020 COVID spring I finally decided to tackle the problem. I had never been happy with Wordpress’s structure for a portfolio site, so when I came across Hugo’s static website framework I decided to give it a try and learn something along the way. This site is the result of that effort. 😄

Me

I serve as Digital Publishing Specialist at Orca Book Publishers. I also occasionally work as an accessible ebook developer, a freelance communication consultant, production manager and designer. Feel free to contact me to discuss your projects and how we can work together.

Just for Fun

What I do It varies: in the past I worked mostly on books, some magazines, communications & design — that was the last 30 some-odd years. Currently I work at Orca Book Publishers as a Digital Publishing Specialist. Which means I create and remediate ebooks to meet the Benetech Accessibility standard, while occasionally dabbling in audiobook production and a few other digital adjacent tasks. I occasionally still do contract work, doing any of a vast myriad of tasks in the communications field (in some cases just for fun) but I am still trying to focus on accessible ebook development.

Jobs I have done Babysat, worked in a furniture department, hoed sugar beets, had a paper route, processed turnips, DQ cook, feed mill labourer, stockyard hand, wireline hand, farm hand, bale truck loader, waiter, stage hand (props, lighting and sound etc.), stage manager, retail renovations, stage carpenter, book designer, weekly newspaper production manager, IT support, graphic designer, worked in marketing & design, IT manager, marketing manager, production manager, magazine designer, communications consultant, magazine writer, web designer, glass artist and ebook developer.

Places I’ve lived France/Belgium (briefly), Montreal (Roxboro, Dollard des Ormeaux), Southern Alberta, Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Victoria BC, and up and down the PNW on a boat.

Places I’ve been Alberta (north to south, east to west), Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Yellowknife, Lac La Ronge, Regina, and Gray Saskatchewan, Vancouver, Victoria, Tofino, Port Hardy, Haida G’waii (the Queen Charlottes), the Broughton Archipelago, Prince Rupert, Ottawa, all of Canada on the Number 1 Highway west of Montreal, Newfoundland, St. Pierre/Miquelon, NYC, Upper New York State, Boston, Vermont, Michigan, San Francisco, Montana, Puerto Vallarta, Reykjavik, London, Edinburgh, Barcelona, Figueres, Paris, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Aquitaine, the Alsace Lorraine, Luxembourg, the Mosel Valley (Germany) and Altona, Manitoba. Most recently I sailed the west coast from Vancouver to LA.

Things I like to do Sail, climb rocks, play Civ, read (bad sci-fi [and good sci-fi]), volunteer making quality ebooks, and fiddle around with computers. Artistically speaking, I draw (badly), screen print, create stained glass and write both professionally and for pleasure (no comment).

My OS I started with an Apple IIc and ProDOS, moved to Windows 3.1 then back to a Mac, Systems 6 through 7, Windows XP and now am up to OS X 14.3 (Sonoma) and Windows 10 on my desktop and OS X 13 (Ventura) on my “old” Mac Mini. iOS is my mobile platform of choice, but I have an Nexus 7 kicking around for the occasion Android fix. Recently I have been expanding my horizons with a foray into Linux (Mint, Ubuntu) and a couple of Raspberry Pi’s—so far, so good.

A more official version

Currently serving as a Digital Publishing Specialist at Orca Book Publishers, Bruce Keith has been working in print and digital production for over 30 years.

For three years Bruce served as a volunteer editor at the Standard Ebooks project, helping create high-quality, accessible, open source, and free public domain ebooks. There he developed a passion for accessibility.

Previously he helped create and ran a highly successful publishing program at Hole’s, creating more than a dozen commercially successful gardening books and producing a nationally distributed magazine.