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Scott Griffin climbs an eight-metre-tall Amate tree in MexicoAlejandra Cartagena

"It's about control," Scott Griffin says. This lean, grey-haired 76-year-old is the owner of the House of Anansi, one of the last major Canadian publishing houses, and he's speaking about what everyone else in this sphere is fixated on: the ongoing battle between Hachette and Amazon. "It's about who gets to set the price of the product, of course. At present, Amazon makes more work for you, as a publisher, but you don't necessarily earn any more through this new channel."

Griffin speaks cautiously about publishing. That makes sense: His background is in automotive parts. He was forced out of his parts company in the mid-1990s, and what hasn't he done with the freedom foisted upon him after he turned 55?

In a single-engine Cessna, he's flown doctors over borders in Africa (crashing twice); he's endowed one of the world's richest poetry prizes; he's about to sail halfway around the Earth and write a book about it. His post-purge investments have been quixotic. ("He's done well, but he's not Bill Gates," a brother has said. "And so there's some risk to it.")

Indeed, Griffin's so-called retirement seems to have been all about playing the game of risk.

He does the interview in a study at his wife Krystyne's house in Puerto Escondido, Mexico—"I had no interest in coming down here, but she did, so I said, 'Build it, and if you feel like it, invite me down.' She's kindly done so each year." The room overlooks the Pacific Ocean, its walls lined with books and silver necklaces, in various states of doneness (his wife is a jewellery designer).

The great-grandson of railway baron Sir William Mackenzie, Griffin has little good to say about his hometown Toronto and its merchant class. "Money, career, power and who you know all seemed so important," he writes in My Heart Is Africa, his 2006 book about volunteering with Flying Doctors. "For years, I dreamed of breaking away from business into something completely different."

Different is dropping $2 million to endow a prize for poetry. "It felt somehow right to devote money earned from spark plugs to poetry." Of the genesis of his taste for verse, he recalls that his father used to punish him for misdemeanours by making him memorize and recite poems.(1)

Different is buying Anansi, one of the few independents left standing after McClelland & Stewart's gradual absorption by Random House. "World rights is one thing we're big on; we have to keep author advances small." (2)

What's the game plan at Anansi? "It seems important to try to stay nimble. There's no question the model is broken. At present, you hope for one or two books to carry you through—one good golf swing on a course." However, he's happy to leave most day-to-day decision-making to Anansi's formidable president, Sarah MacLachlan—"If I'm good at one thing, it's figuring out who to trust. You do your due diligence, but in the end it's intuitive."

He also follows his gut when deciding which other firms to back. Greg Taylor co-founded Steam Whistle Brewery in 2000, and says of Griffin's investment in it: "We were three guys fired from Upper Canada, this brewery we helped build. (3) Something in that spoke to Scott. He didn't come in [as an investor and board member], telling us what to do; he had the confidence to listen."

In all, Griffin sits on six corporate boards, chairing two. "I've pared it down prior to going sailing. I'd rather do things than discuss them."

Indeed, Griffin is, as a rule, curiously inarticulate.

Or maybe there's some calculation to his fuzzy responses, an effort to keep just a few secrets. Certainly, he won't give away what method he applies in deciding to invest—between $50,000 and $250,000—in certain small ventures. The backed firms have little in common apart from being off-the-beaten-path value propositions, says Griffin: "One company has found a way of freeze-drying honey to coat pills. Another has developed a new way of measuring the temperature in a turbine engine—which can be used to help increase fuel efficiency."

What's kept him moving during the last two decades, with most of his contemporaries slowing down? "Every so often you have this feeling, 'Something should be done.' Though there was no Paul-at-the-crossroads enlightenment, it was that way with the poetry prize. There's been something like that with all of the other things I've gotten up to. When I had to leave my company, I wanted to pull away from something, a way of thinking and being. But I've been moving toward something, too."

FOOTNOTES

1 Griffin recently gave a talk at Bishop's University, where he recited, from memory, a bit of bawdiness from Dylan Thomas, a piece on poverty by e.e. cummings and Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach.

2 A private company with 20 employees, Anansi has made small profits in each of the last three years, on revenues of between $7 and $8 million.

3 Each bottle of Steam Whistle has 3FG on the bottom, standing for its founders, "Three Fired Guys."

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