Collin Reid Piprell, died 29 June 2022, RIP

Collin Reid Piprell, died 29 June 2022, RIP

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand extends its deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of longstanding journalist member and author Collin Piprell, who died of a heart attack on Wednesday. Our thoughts are particularly with his wife, Saraporn Touchatturat.

A Canadian writer and editor who had worked in Thailand since the 1980s, Collin was large, gentle and gregarious with a rich laugh that was unforgettable and infectious. In Canada, he worked in a variety of jobs, including as a driller and stope leader in mines and tunnels in Ontario and Quebec. In England, he did graduate work as a Canada Council Doctoral Fellow (and later, a social sciences and humanities fellow) in politics and philosophy at Pembroke College, Oxford. Time spent in Kuwait was devoted to sailing, waterskiing and – so he claimed – making “credible red wine in plastic garbage bins.”

In later years, Collin taught writing courses at Thammasat University, freelanced as a writer and editor, and published hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics. Many of the pieces were pre-digital and “hence effectively written on the wind,” he said.

Collin authored short stories that appeared in Asian anthologies and magazines, as well as well as novels and collections of short stories and occasional pieces, diving guides, a book on Thailand’s coral reefs, and co-authored a book on the kingdom’s national parks. There were also several Jack Shackaway thrillers, follow-ups to ‘Kicking Dogs’ (1991). His mordant titles included ‘Bangkok Knights’ (1989) and ‘Yawn: A Thriller’ (2000).

“Life is good,” Collin wrote. “My basic philosophy is I don’t give a rip. My mentors are the Lord Buddha, Charlie Brown’s little sister, and Keith Richards.”

“The real payoff as a writer, at least for me, comes after I’ve been banging my head against some story for days, frustrated with my wooden prose and dumb ideas. Then one morning I go straight to my computer and start churning stuff I must’ve been struggling with all night long, on some unconscious level. It can be magical; I have no idea where some of it comes from. This may be the experience that, all those thousands of years ago, inspired the legend of the Muse.”

Steve Rosse writes:

Collin Piprell was a writer, a miner, a diver, and a philosopher. He was one of the best friends I ever had. His writing for magazines was prolific for three decades. His early books of short fiction, particularly ‘Bangkok Nights’ and ‘Too Many Women,’ explored the Bangkok bar scene with insight and humor long before it had become a lame trope. His novel, ‘Kicking Dogs,’ launched the Bangkok-crime-novel-written-by-an-expat genre.

His years editing a plethora of publications for Artasia Press saw him mentor a cadre of writers, and we all owe him a debt. He taught us that just because you’re writing about a booze cruise doesn’t mean you can just phone it in. His last decade was spent writing a giant, fantastical, epic dystopian science fiction trilogy, set in a future Bangkok, two books of which have been published under the name ‘Magic Circles.’ It is unfortunate that his last project remains unfinished, but perhaps it will give us comfort to remember that he was doing what he enjoyed right up until the end: Sitting in the big window at the Starbucks in the mall, inventing worlds. Up until yesterday I was standing on his shoulders. I will miss his support terribly.

Funeral rites as above at Wat Thep Leela, Sala 4, June 30-July 3, Soi 41, Ramkamhaeng, Hua Mark.