Bruce Westwood, founder of powerhouse literary agency, was ‘an old-fashioned deal-maker’

There’s a corner store with walls of books behind its large windows, kitty corner from the giant Robarts Library at the University of Toronto. A sign on the door says: “We are not a bookstore”; it is in fact a converted antique shop that is the head office of the literary agency that Bruce Westwood founded.Mr. Westwood was a successful young entrepreneur when he switched gears and built Westwood Creative Artists, which became probably Canada’s most successful literary agency, representing more than 500 writers, responsible for the publication of 3,500 books over the past 30 years. He died at his home in Ontario’s Hockley Valley on Feb. 28 at age 84.