Nominated for the 18th annual Ann
Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature: |
|
|
K.V. Johansen, Nightwalker: The Warlocks of Talverdin After his guardian dies, Maurey is reduced from student to unpaid servant at his grammar school and is taunted because of the black hair and eyes which make him look as if he were related to Nightwalkers, the sorcerers who once inhabited the island. When it is discovered that he is indeed a descendent of Nightwalkers, he is sentenced to be burned alive. Rescued by a young baroness, they set out on a dangerous journey to the hidden kingdom of Talverdin. If he and Annot are to survive and prevent the destruction of the last refuge of the Nightwalkers, Maurey will have to call on human and inhuman skills he never knew he possessed, and win the trust of both sides of his family. "If there is one book that has shaped what I think a book should do and what literature should be," medieval scholar K.V. Johansen says, "it is The Lord of the Rings." Like Tolkien, she is thorough in her research — a rich reward for readers. Johansen lives in a bit of another world herself. She grows exotic trees indoors, from a Tasmanian blue gum that reached ten feet to several California redwoods. She shares her jungle home in Sackville, New Brunswick, with a large dog named Pippin and several enormous goldfish. Hi-res pictures: cover, author (by Chris Paul) More information: Orca Books, WFNS, Wikipedia, Sybertooth |
  |
| Valerie Sherrard, Speechless “No one pays much attention to you if you don‘t have much to say, so there was no way I could have predicted what would happen when I stopped talking altogether.” When his teacher announces that it’s time for the yearly class speeches, Griffin Maxwell starts to sweat. His past experience with the dreaded speech was humiliating, and he knows there’s no way he can go through that again. So Griffin’s best friend, Bryan, comes up with a solution — one that’s so simple it has to work. But neither boy can begin to predict the bizarre chain of events about to unfold. From squaring off with the school bully to reading a teacher‘s private letters, Griffin Maxwell faces things he had never imagined, and all without saying a word! Born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Valerie (Russell) Sherrard lived in various parts of the country before settling in NB, where she has made her home for the past two decades. Writing for young adults comes naturally to the executive director of a group home for adolescents, and former foster parent of approximately 70 teenagers. Sherrard has learned to allow her characters free reign, even when this means a change in the plot. "Sometimes I have to go back and read what's just been written to find out what's going on," she smiles. Sherrard's interests are varied, ranging from home decorating to watching boxing with her husband, Brent. Their family home is a converted funeral parlour, although the only odd noises heard there come from their eccentric pet, Tom the Cat. |
  |
Alice Walsh,
A Sky Black with Crows In the early 20th century, Wilfred Grenfell exposed the desperation of the people in the outports of Newfoundland and Labrador. His name became synonymous with one of the greatest missions to the poverty-stricken in North America: The Grenfell Mission. A feisty teenager, Katie Andrew goes with her family each summer to fish the Labrador waters. When her father is lost at sea, Katie’s mother stubbornly refuses to leave the outport and waits for him to return even when all hope is lost. Soon Katie’s entire family falls ill, and her mother dies. Katie awakens after her illness in the orphanage run by the Grenfell Mission. She is devastated by the disappearance of her youngest sister, who has been adopted. A Sky Black with Crows follows Katie through a series of events that are as vital to her search for her sister as they are insightful of the history of the Atlantic region at a time when Canada was about to make its early mark on the world. Alice Walsh was born in northern Newfoundland and lives today in Lower Sackville, NS. She has published many articles and short stories in newspapers, magazines and literary journals, and has written educational material for various publications. Her published work includes five children's books. She has been frequently cited for Children's Book Centre Our Choice designation and has been nominated twice for the Hackmatack Award. In 2005, her book Pomiuk: Prince of the North won the Ann Connor Brimer Award. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: WFNS, CM Magazine (review), Red Deer Press |
  |
Nominated
for the 20th annual Atlantic Independent
Booksellers’ Choice Award: |
|
|
Steven Laffoley, Hunting Halifax: In Search of History, Mystery and Murder Hunting Halifax begins as good ghost stories should, in an old city cemetery with author Laffoley pondering a black hole in Halifax history, a stretch between 1843 when the old burying place was closed, and 1857 when a monument to the Crimea was erected there. This was a time of tectonic shift between the agrarian and the industrial ages that had resonance for an author at the shift between industrial and digital ages. Had ghosts from this earlier historic black hole affected the present day? As the investigation of murder and mystery unfolds, Steven discovers the ghosts of the past haunt the present in unexpected ways. Born near Boston, Massachusetts, Steven Edwin Laffoley has worked as a bookstore manager, a curriculum writer, a university professor, a school principal, and a dues-paying member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters delivering beer in south Boston. A compulsive freelance writer, columnist, and broadcaster, Steven has written dozens of articles and essays for online magazines and newspapers, as well as for CBC Radio. His last book was Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason. He lives with his wife and daughter in Halifax. Steven Laffoley's Hunting Halifax is also nominated for the Evelyn Richardson Non-fiction Prize. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Pottersfield, WFNS |
  |
Jacques Poitras, Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy The very public battle over the ownership of millions of dollars worth of paintings at Fredericton’s Beaverbrook Art Gallery has had all the makings of best-selling pulp fiction – money, aristocracy, sex, family laundry and court intrigue. It’s a story that might have appeared on the front pages published by its protagonist, press baron Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook. In this fascinating account, Jacques Poitras explores the intertwined history of the Aitken family and the Beaverbrook Gallery. ‘A Shattered Legacy’ underscores the sea-change that has occurred since Gallery founding, when Beaverbrook could command obedience and obsequiousness from his fellow New Brunswickers, and today, when heirs joust with an independent and proud public institution. Jacques Poitras has been CBC Radio’s provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick since 2000. He has written numerous award-winning feature documentaries and has appeared on Radio-Canada, National Public Radio, and the BBC. His first book was the critically acclaimed The Right Fight: Bernard Lord and the Conservative Dilemma. He lives near Fredericton. Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy is also shortlisted for the Best Atlantic Published Book Award Hi-res pictures: cover, author (by Tonë Meeg) More information: Goose Lane Editions, Jam! Showbiz (review) |
  |
|
Harvey Sawler, Twenty-first Century Irvings Twenty-first Century Irvings explores the modern family business, the powerful players behind its continuing success, and the myths that are spread about the wealthy Irving empire. Author Harvey Sawler exposes the truths behind the myths, and predicts the transformation of the family, in similar fashion to the Rockefeller and the Morgan families, from industrialists to philanthropists. A business story, a family story, and a Maritime story, this is a book that will fascinate all who are affected by the Irving empire. Harvey Sawler began his career as a writer and journalist with newspapers in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Journalism led to a 30-year career in public relations, marketing and tourism. He is a regular contributor to Progress and Saltscapes magazines and is the author of five books, including The Beer Bandit Caper and On the Road with Dutch Mason. Harvey exists today in a virtual office — highways, airports, and hotels - but is partially rooted in Halifax. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Nimbus |
  |
Nominated for the 11th Annual Atlantic Poetry Prize: |
|
Don Domanski,
All Our Wonder Unavenged All Our Wonder Unavenged was written over a seven year period, and continues Don Domanski’s exploration of the ordinary and the extraordinary, and the ways in which they illuminate each other, transforming through unexpected contexts. Don is a poet of the holiness of subtleties, a master of mindfulness and being. His writing is a form of osmosis, spirit seeping through the details of each poem, creating a marvel of metaphysics and language distilled to purest energy. Living in the moment here is synonymous with being the moment, a transformation that is stunning to inhabit. Born in 1950 in Sydney and raised on Cape Breton Island, Don’s first collection, The Cape Breton Book of the Dead, was published by House of Anansi Press in 1978. Two of his collections have previously been nominated for the GG: Wolf Ladder (Coach House, 1991) and Stations of the Left Hand (Coach House, 1994). In 1999 he won the Canadian Literary Award for Poetry, and he has been published internationally in Czech, Portuguese and Spanish. Don, who makes his home in Halifax, has participated several times in WFNS’s mentorship program, and is currently a writer in electronic residence with the Banff School. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Brick Books, Wikipedia, ARC (review), CBC Words at Large (interview) |
  |
George Murray,
The Rush to Here Combining what he calls "thought-rhyme" with the structured sonnet form, George Murray’s philosophical curiosity and hardnosed intelligence emerge to create an off-kilter eye that somehow manages to be dead on target. As though looking out a window outside of which the entire world is passing by, The Rush to Here darts through the absurdity of daily life to organize the mess and contradictions of modern society. Relentlessly honest, elegant in form and language, The Rush to Here is an intimidating, eerie, but ultimately hopeful collection that sets Murray apart as a voice for our time. George Murray’s three previous books of poetry include The Hunter (McClelland & Stewart, 2003) and The Cottage Builder’s Letter (M&S, 2001). His poems, fiction and criticism have appeared in many publications in Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, and Europe. He won the 2003 New York Festivals Radio and Television Gold Medal for Best Writing for his broadcast poem "Anniversary: A Personal Inventory" and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is the editor and publisher of the popular literary website Bookninja.com and a contributing editor for several literary magazines, including Canadian Notes and Queries and The Drunken Boat. He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Hi-res pictures: cover, author (by John Macdonald) More information: Nightwood, Wikipedia, georgemurray.wordpress.com, Northern Poetry Review (interview) |
  |
Anne Simpson,
Quick The human body is a world. How it contains all that it does, how it is altered, and how it is transformed after death are the concerns of Quick, a new collection of poetry from one of Canada’s most exciting poets. From the shock of a near-fatal car accident to a meditation on the body as one world within other, larger worlds, the book becomes an anatomy in itself. Winner of the prestigious Journey Prize for short fiction, Anne Simpson is also the author of two other books of poetry, Light Falls Through You, winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize; and Loop, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. Her fiction includes Canterbury Beach, which was shortlisted for the Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and Falling, which has just been released by McClelland & Stewart. Anne, who has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, is the driving force behind the Great Blue Heron Summer Writing Workshop. She lives with her family in Antigonish. Hi-res pictures: cover, author (by John Berridge) |
  |
Nominated
for the 5th annual Best Atlantic Published
Book Award: |
|
Gracie, The Public Gardens Duck
by Judith Meyrick; illustrated by Richard Rudnicki. Gracie has an idyllic life in Halifax’s Public Gardens. What delicious treats to savour from visitors to the park – muffins, popcorn, peanut butter sandwiches. Gracie loves the attention, the visitors, but especially, Gracie loves the food. Suddenly, Gracie’s favourite people stop bringing treats. Why won’t they share their lunch? Aren’t they worried she’ll starve? Despite best efforts, Gracie is reduced to…well…duck food. And despite herself…she starts to enjoy it. Gracie, The Public Gardens Duck is the funny and sweet saga of one hungry duck in search of supper. Judith Meyrick has lived and worked in Halifax, NS for many years. She has just returned from two years in her native New Zealand where she worked for the NZ Master Games in Wanganui. She is a freelance writer and discovered her passion for children's literature only in recent years. Gracie, The Public Gardens Duck is her first published children's book. Illustrator Richard Rudnicki is also shortlisted for for the Lillian Shepherd Memorial Prize for Illustration. Click HERE for details. Nimbus Publishing is the largest English-language publisher east of Toronto. Nimbus produces more than thirty new titles a year on a range of subjects relevant to the Atlantic Provinces— children’s picture books and fiction, literary non-fiction, social and cultural history, nature photography, current events, biography, sports, and cultural issues. In 2005, Nimbus introduced a new fiction imprint called Vagrant Press. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Nimbus, Canadian Teacher Magazine (review) |
  |
Miller Brittain: When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by Tom Smart Miller Gore Brittain (1912-1968) had an unerring sense of structure and composition. In the early ‘30s, at the Art Students’ League in New York, he experienced the pivotal moment in American art: the shift from traditional to abstract expressionism. When he returned to Canada, the Group of Seven still defined Canadian art, and he burst upon the scene with emotion-filled drawings and paintings of the human form. Later, combining figures and abstraction, he explored the limits of the body and the borderlands of sanity to express the depths of despair and the heights of ecstasy. World War II interrupted Brittain’s career and on his bombing missions he carried William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience with him. Blake’s poems, particularly ‘The Tyger,’ proved a pervasive motif of Brittain’s later work. Tom Smart is the newly appointed Executive Director and CEO of the McMichael Canadian Collection. He was previously Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the Frick Art and Historical Center, Pittsburgh; Acting Director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery; and curator of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. He is the author of many books on Canadian art, including Alex Colville: Return and the award-winning The Art of Mary Pratt: The Substance of Light. Goose Lane Editions is a small, lively company based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on the beautiful Saint John River. As Canada’s oldest independent publisher (now more than 50 years old), Goose Lane successfully combines a regional heart with a national profile to Hi-res pictures: cover, author (by Tom Sandler) More information: Goose Lane Editions, The McMichael Canadian Art Collection |
  |
| Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy by Jacques Poitras This book is also shortlisted for the Atlantic Independent Booksellers' Choice Awards. Click HERE for details. |
|
Nominated for the 20th annual Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction: |
|
|
Carol Bruneau, Glass Voices When giving up is not an option, what enables a person to go on after suffering great loss? 71 year-old Lucie Caines’ husband suffers a severe stroke that makes her re-examine her complicated relationship with the man she has both loved and loathed. From 1917, when their first home is destroyed in the Halifax Explosion and Lucy loses her first child, to the social tumult of the 60s, Glass Voices twists through time. There’s bootlegging, illegal fishing, pickles bubbling on the stove, men landing on the moon and, as Lucy examines her past, she changes her present. Her ability to cope with tragedy, her quiet strength – despite the pain and sorrow – is inspiring. Carol Bruneau is also the author of the novels Berth and Purple For Sky, which won both the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize (2000). She has written two collections of short stories, Depth Rapture and After the Angel Mill, both published by Cormorant Books. She has taught creative writing at Mount St.Vincent University and the Nova Scotia Community College, and is currently on the faculty of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where she teaches writing. She lives in Halifax with her husband and three sons. Hi-res pictures: cover, author (by Bruce Erskine) More information: Cormorant, WFNS, CBC Words at Large (interview) |
  |
| David Doucette, North of Smokey The Curtis kids “slunk through life as half-starved coyotes,” three boys and silent daughter Grace, in a small cold, wood-frame house perched between ocean and mountain in a remote Cape Breton Depression community. Frank, the youngest, has to try harder, learn faster, stretch further: a near-fatal hunting accident in adolescence highlights Frank’s inner and outer strengths. Fate, and Frank’s fortitude, propel him from the shadows of his rural home to the spotlight of the world stage, and, eventually, back home to Ingonish. Born and raised in Ingonish, David Doucette holds degrees in Arts and Education from St. Francis Xavier and Saint Mary's Universities. He has lived and taught in Taiwan, Japan and Singapore. His short stories have appeared in magazines in Canada and abroad, and he won the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction for his first novel, Strong at the Broken Places, in 2002. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: CBU Press |
  |
Beatrice MacNeil,Where White Horses Gallop It is 1939. England has declared war on Germany, and Canada will march beside her. Soon the lives of five young friends living in rugged, pristine Cape Breton will be changed forever. Fiddler Benny Doucet, prospective med student Calum MacPherson, and fisherman Hector MacDonald all decide to enlist. But Calum's handicapped brother Hamish is stuck at home, while Alex MacGregor, in love with the postmistress, hides in his mother's attic. The fate of these devoted friends, during and after the war, hinges on forces beyond their control in this lyrical, vibrant novel. Beatrice MacNeil is the author of the novel Butterflies Dance in the Dark, and the story collection, The Moonlight Skater, both winners of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction. Her picture book, There is a Mouse in the House of Miss Crouse, won the Marianna Dempster Award. She has written ten plays, four of which have won awards, and two of which have been adapted for Halifax CBC Radio. She is the recipient of the Tic Butler Award for her outstanding contribution to Cape Breton writing and culture, and is the founder of Cape Breton's Reading Ceilidhs. She lives in Cape Breton. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Key Porter Books, WFNS, Quill & Quire (interview) |
  |
Nominated for the 20th annual Dartmouth Book Award for Non-Fiction: |
|
| Marq de Villiers, Witch in the Wind: The True Story of the Legendary Bluenose Witch in the Wind is a fascinating journey into the backstory of a remarkable vessel. She was a superb boat that emerged from a long boatbuilding tradition where skilled tradesmen built many wonderful vessels, and she was skippered by a skilled sailor at a time flush with some of the most accomplished sailors in the world. De Villiers explores everything from the behind-the-scenes drama of her construction, to her hardscrabble existence as a fishing vessel, to her breathtaking races at a time when a shift was happening and a way of life, fast disappearing. Born in South Africa, Marq de Villiers is a veteran Canadian journalist and the author of eight books, including Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource (winner of the Governor General’s Award for Non- Fiction), Down the Volga in a Time of Troubles, and hasco-written with Sheila Hirtle, Into Africa: A Journey Through the Ancient Empires, and A Dune Adrift: The Strange Origins and Curious History of Sable Island, which won the Evelyn Richardson Award in 2005. He has worked as a foreign correspondent in Moscow and through Eastern Europe, and spent many years as editor and then publisher of Toronto Life magazine. Most recently, he was Editorial Director of WHERE Magazines International. Marq de Villiers' Witch in the Wind is also nominated for the Evelyn Richardson Prize for Non-fiction. Hi-res pictures: cover, author (by Paul Orenstein) More information: Thomas Allen Publishers, WFNS, Quill & Quire (review) |
  |
| Stewart Donovan, The Forgotten World of R. J. MacSween: A Life Born of Gaelic-speaking Scots living on the shores of the Bras d’Or Lake in Cape Breton, R. J. (Roderick Joseph) MacSween grew up in conditions of poverty and hardship. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest and recruited to teach at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, where he established the first creative writing course in a Canadian university. He founded The Antigonish Review, and influenced the careers of such writers as Alistair MacLeod, Sheldon Currie and Linden MacIntyre, as well as thousands of students from several generations. ‘The Forgotten World’ is a literary biography that examines the life and work of this relatively unknown, enigmatic and gifted man from Cape Breton. Stewart Donovan was born in the village of Ingonish in the highlands of Cape Breton Island. He is of Irish, Scots and Acadian ancestry. His maternal grandfather's first language was Scots Gaelic. He studied at St. Francis Xavier University under Rev. R.J. MacSween and then did his MA at the University of Ottawa. He completed his graduate studies in Ireland where he received his doctorate in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama in 1985. For the past 23 years he has been a professor of Literature and Film at St. Thomas University where he founded both the Irish Studies Program and The Nashwaak Review, which he continues to edit. Stewart Donovan's The Forgotten World of R.J. MacSween is also nominated for the Evelyn Richardson Prize for Non-fiction. Hi-res pictures: cover, author |
  |
A. J. B. Johnston, Endgame 1758: The Promise, the Glory and the Despair The story of what happened at the colonial fortified town of Louisbourg between 1749 and 1758 is one of the great dramas of the history of Canada, indeed of North America. The French stronghold on Cape Breton Island, strategically situated near the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was, from soon after its founding, a major possession in the quest for empire. The dramatic military and social history of this short-lived and significant fortress, seaport, and community, and the citizens who made it their home, are woven together in A. J. B. Johnston’s gripping biography of the colony’s final decade, presented from both French and British perspectives. Endgame 1758 is a tale of two empires in collision on the shores of mid-eighteenth-century Atlantic Canada, where rival European visions of predominance clashed headlong with each other and with the region’s Aboriginal peoples. The magnitude of the struggle and of its uncertain outcome coloured the lives of Louisbourg’s inhabitants and the nearly thirty thousand combatants arrayed against it. The entire history comes to life in a tale of what turned out to be the first major British victory in the Seven Years’ War. How and why the French colony ended the way it did, not just in June and July 1758, but over the decade that preceded the siege, is a little-known and compelling story. A.J.B. (John) Johnston is an author and historian with many articles and eleven published books that look at the histories of Louisbourg, Cape Breton, Acadia and Nova Scotia. A Halifax resident, he is an historian with Parks Canada. Hi-res pictures: cover, author |
  |
Nominated for the 31st annual Evelyn Richardson Prize for Non-fiction: |
|
| Marq de Villiers, Witch in the Wind: The True Story of the Legendary Bluenose This book is also nominated for the Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction. Click HERE for details. |
|
| Stewart Donovan, The Forgotten World of R. J. MacSween: A Life This book is also nominated for the Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction. Click HERE for details. |
|
|
Steven Laffoley, Hunting Halifax: In Search of History, Mystery and Murder This book is also nominated for the Atlantic Independent Booksellers’ Choice Award. Click HERE for details. |
|
Nominated for the 6th annual Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration: |
|
| Nancy Keating, A Puppy Story Laura Lou promises Mom and Dad that if only she can have a puppy, he will have perfect manners. Oops…chubby and cuddly, he’s puddling on the floor. Puppy likes snacking on houseplants, splashing out of the tub and sliding down the hall. Laura Lou knows that it's up to her. Together, they learn how to change a little bundle of eager invention into a perfectly mannered member of the family....well, almost. Nancy Keating grew up in Conception Bay South, and lives today with her husband and three children in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland. She’s been working as a commercial artist for more than two decades. A self-taught artist, she particularly enjoys illustrating children’s books, which have included Carmelita McGrath’s The Dog Next Year, The Saltbox Sweater by Janet McNaughton and Only for the Weekend by Elaine Dicks. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Tuckamore Books |
  |
| Eric Orchard, A Forest For Christmas Emily believes in magic—the magic of the moon, of the animals she talks to, and of her lovely old town, Lunenburg. She also believes in the magic of the Friendly Forest, but she’s worried that it might not be enough to stop the owner of the new whatzit factory from chopping down the trees she loves so much. Will all the forest’s animals, a little stardust and a lot of courage be enough to save the Friendly Forest, just in time for Christmas? Eric Orchard grew up in a small Nova Scotia town with plenty of time to read and dream. In his late teens, Eric began publishing his own fairy-tale-themed comic books. He attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design where he studied painting and art history, graduating in 2006. This is Eric’s first picture book. He has also illustrated Anything But Hank by Zachery Wells and Rachel Lebowitz (Biblioasis). Eric lives in Halifax. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Nimbus, Jacketflap, http://ericorchard.blogspot.com/ |
  |
Richard Rudnicki, Gracie, The Public Gardens Duck Gracie has an idyllic life in Halifax’s Public Gardens. What delicious treats to savour from visitors to the park – muffins, popcorn, peanut butter sandwiches. Gracie loves the attention, the visitors, but especially Gracie loves the food. Suddenly, Gracie’s favourite people stop bringing treats. Why won’t they share their lunch? Aren’t they worried she’ll starve? Despite best efforts, Gracie is reduced to…well…duck food. And despite herself…she starts to enjoy it. Gracie, The Public Gardens Duck is the funny and sweet saga of one hungry duck in search of supper. Richard Rudnicki began drawing at a very young age, went on to study fine art and graphic design and, as an idealistic youth, became a resident artist with CUSO. A short time later he started a graphic design firm, which grew into a successful company. In 1994 he sold his business to return to drawing and painting, becoming a full-time visual artist. Richard lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Grace, The Public Gardens Duck is also nominated for the Best Atlantic Published Book Award. Click HERE for details. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Nimbus, Canadian Teacher Magazine (review), Jacketflap |
 |
Nominated for the 5th annual Margaret and John Savage First Book Award: |
|
| Fred Armstrong, Happiness of Fish On a snowy winter night, Gerry Adamson hides from his family in a laid-up sailboat. Pushing sixty, holed-up with a laptop, he’s trying to make a novel from thirty-odd years of compromises and betrayals that have seen him progress from youthful erratic passion to late-middle-aged dithering. He’s making one last effort to have it mean something. Fred Armstrong has more than 30 years' experience in journalism and light entertainment, writing for print, radio, and television. Fred was born in Ottawa in 1947 and raised there. He emigrated to Newfoundland and Labrador in 1972 and has written for The Daily News, CBC, and Newcap Broadcasting. When he qualified for one of the first Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland & Labrador mentorships in 2004 (mentored by local writer and musician Ed Kavanagh), Fred cut back on journalistic work to complete his first novel. Happiness of Fish is that novel. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Jesperson Press |
  |
| Stephanie Domet, Homing: the whole story (from the inside out) Leah is haunted. By the things she's done, by the things she should have done, and by the ghost of her brother. She has to learn to let go of the past if she, or her brother, are ever going to move on. A funny, urban love story, Homing is about a woman who's grown afraid of the outdoors, a ghost that's lost its way, a musician who's trying to find his, and Sandy and Harold, a pair of homing pigeons that help bring it all back home. Stephanie Domet is a writer-broadcaster who lives in Halifax. She owns a baby grand piano, a guitar and two harmonicas. She doesn't play any of them, but if you happen to drop by her place, you'd be welcome to. You may have heard her on CBC Radio, read her work in the Halifax Daily News, The Coast, or Halifax Magazine, or seen her in the 2005 Atlantic Fringe Festival performing her one-woman show, Cogswell!, or at the Atlantic Film Festival, appearing in a film of the same name. She has worked as a mall mascot, in a balloon factory, as a graveyard shift pastry chef and in many, many diners and bookstores. She vastly prefers writing books to just about anything else she's done. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Invisible Publishing, WFNS, MySpace, The Coast (feature) |
  |
| Bob Mersereau, The Top100 Canadian Albums From a nation that invented Trivial Pursuit and is renowned for inveterate list-making, The Top 100 Canadian Albums was a book that needed to be written. Polling more than 500 musicians, music industry insiders and journalists, Bob Mersereau has assembled a list that is sure to spark more than a few hundred debates among aficionados. The book features cover reproductions and descriptions for each of the albums that made the list as well as documentary photographs, interviews and fascinating facts. Did you know that Randy Bachman tried to get Trooper to change the name of their 1978 hit to ‘Raise a Little Howl’ because of his religious beliefs? And the top album? Bob’s book is on sale in the lobby. Bob Mersereau is a music columnist and long-time arts reporter for CBC Television in New Brunswick. Since 1982, he’s been reporting on the East Coast music scene for CBC Radio, CBC Television, and the Telegraph-Journal. Nicknamed Rockin’ Bob by the late Peter Gzowski, he’s been a frequent guest on such CBC programs as Morningside and Sounds like Canada. Hi-res pictures: cover, author More information: Goose Lane Editions, The London Free Press (review) Exclaim! (review) |
  |
Nominated for the 18th annual Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize: |
|
Don Hannah, Ragged Islands It’s September 11, 2001: Susan Ann Robert’s 85th birthday. She lies dying in a Toronto hospital swathed in restraints of catheters, diapers and tethers when suddenly she’s on the dirt road leading to her childhood home in New Brunswick, fretting at the mystery of why she – among all her siblings – was given away as a child. Accompanied by her long lost little dog, Sally, she continues along old roads, visiting the lost houses of her memory and fragments of the individuals who peopled her life. A simple life lived, as mundane and as heroic as are all our lives. Don Hannah was born in Shediac, New Brunswick, and now lives in Toronto and on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. His novels, The Wise and Foolish Virgins (shortlisted for the Thomas Raddall Award) and Ragged Islands are published by Knopf Canada. His plays include The Wedding Script (Chalmers Award), Rubber Dolly, Running Far Back, The Wooden Hill (AT&T OnStage Award), and Fathers and Sons. He has been writer in residence at the Tarragon Theatre, the Canadian Stage Company, the University of New Brunswick, and for the Yukon Public Library Service. He was the inaugural Lee Playwright in Residence at the University of Alberta, where he wrote While We're Young. He has written two musicals with singer/songwriter David Sereda, Love Jive and Siren Song, both of which premiered at Tarragon Theatre. Facing South, his opera, with composer Linda Catlin Smith, premiered at the 2003 World Stage Festival. For five years he was the director of the Tarragon Young Playwrights Unit. As a dramaturge, he has worked at the Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre (PARC), the National Theatre School, and the Vancouver Playwrights Theatre Centre. He is currently on the faculty of the Banff PlayRites Colony. Hi-res pictures: cover, author (by Michael Holly) More information: Knopf, Wikipedia, Nova News Net (feature, with audio clips), January Magazine (review) |
  |
Bernice Morgan, Cloud of Bone What do wild Kyle Holloway, shell-shocked deserter of the Second World War; Shanawadithit, last surviving Beothuk; and anthropologist Judith Muir have in common? Cloud of Bone and Bernice Morgan: a book and an author who reinter the shadows and bones of lost innocence and past brutalities, laying them to rest through a mesmerizing tale and a vivid remembering of forgotten histories. Bernice Morgan was born in Newfoundland and has lived there all her life – a place that fills her imagination, exhilarates her and drives her to despair. Her parents, Sadie Vincent of Cape Island, Bonavista Bay, and William Vardy of Random Island, Trinity Bay, came into St. John’s during the Depression. Stories about the outposts they left behind provided the background for her novels, Random Passage and Waiting for Time. Wartime St. John’s is echoed in her third book, Topography of Love, and in the opening of Cloud of Bone. Her short stories have been widely anthologized, and CBC-TV presented a mini-series based on her first two novels. Waiting for Time won the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize in 1994; and the Newfoundland & Labrador Arts Council proclaimed Morgan “Artist of the Year” in 1996. Hi-res pictures: cover, author (by Greg Morgan) More information: Knopf, Wikipedia, Geist (review), CBC Words at Large (interview) |
  |
David Adams Richards, The Lost Highway A suspenseful morality-tale of greed, betrayal and murder, The Lost Highway tells the story of orphan Alex Chapman who is adopted by his Great-Uncle Jim, with whom he feuds for most of his adult life. An awkward child, he is cast out by family, friends, Minnie, the woman he loves, the seminary in which he seeks faith and solace, the university in which he teaches. His great-uncle’s unknowing purchase of a winning $13 million lottery ticket and Alex’s determination that he’ll not live to enjoy it set readers on a pell-mell, tumultuous ride, a page-turner of life and death. David Adams Richards is the author of the novels The Friends of Meager Fortune, River of the Brokenhearted, and Mercy Among the Children, which won the Giller Prize and was nominated for the Governor General's and the Trillium Awards. He is the author of the celebrated Miramichi trilogy: Nights Below Station Street, winner of the Governor General's Award; Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace, winner of the Canadian Authors' Association Award; and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down, winner of the Raddall Award. His novel The Bay of Love and Sorrows has been made into a feature film. Already this year, David has seen the release of two new books: Lord Beaverbrook (Penguin) and Playing the Inside Out (GooseLane Editions). Hi-res pictures: cover, author (by Debra Their) More information: Wikipedia, January Magazine (interview) |
  |