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Eastword, March-April 2007imPRESSed!: The newest titles by WFNS members
Ben is determined to learn to surf. In the rough North Atlantic waters near his home, only the tough can make it on the water. His first attempt is a disaster. Then he meets Ray, a surfing veteran from California. Ray promises to teach him to surf—and to face his inner demons. As Ben becomes more comfortable on his board he learns to face his fears and prove that he has what it takes to become a Wave Warrior. Lesley Choyce teaches at Dalhousie University, runs Pottersfield Press and has published nearly 60 books, including two other Orca Soundings novels: Thunderbowl and Refuge Cove. He also hosts a nationally syndicated television talk show on Vision Television. His recent novel, Cold Clear Morning, is currently being developed as a feature length movie. Lesley lives and surfs at Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia.
Alden Nowlan, born near Windsor, Nova Scotia in 1933, was a poet, journalist, novelist and playwright who overcame the disadvantages of poverty and a mere four grades of education to publish more than twenty books and three plays. Among his numerous awards, his writing earned him two honourary degrees, a Guggenheim fellowship and Canada’s prestigious Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 1968. That same year he was appointed writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick, a position he held until his death in 1983. This book examines Nowlan’s bravery in accepting the limitations of his class and his art, as well as the myopia of the critical milieu in which his work was measured. Born in Nova Scotia, Gregory M. Cook graduated from Acadia University. Following a two-year appointment as writer-in-residence at the University of Waterloo, he undertook to write an intimate biography of Alden Nowlan, One Heart, One Way / Alden Nowlan: A Writer’s Life (2003). Greg currently resides in Saint John, NB.
George and Ruth Millar are in their twenties in April, 1924, when they set out with two small children on their first rowboat voyage to Pomquet Island, half a mile off Bayfield on the southern shore of St. George’s Bay, Nova Scotia. They will spend the next thirty-six years raising children and keeping the light on this bleak teardrop of land. A Watch in the Night chronicles the family’s struggle to fashion a lightkeeping life on a tiny, windswept island without benefit of running water, electricity, or reliable communication with the mainland. Ultimately a tale in which faith and ingenuity triumph over adversity, A Watch in the Night illustrates what it was like for an island-bound family with a father deeply affected by the horror of the First World War, and where absolute obedience was assumed—but where humour and warmth were always within reach. Ruth Edgett was raised on the north shore of Prince Edward Island. She spent time as a reporter for The Guardian and The Evening Telegram before becoming a communications consultant. She has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Prince Edward Island and an MS in Communications Management from Syracuse University. Ruth lives and writes in Ancaster, Ontario.
When Chris finds a wallet on the street he tries to return it to its owner. In trouble at home and at school, he is struggling to do the right thing; however, as circumstances slowly start unraveling and his whole life appears headed down the drain, Chris realizes that the person who owns the wallet looks a lot like him and has a life he would do almost anything for. What if he switched identities? What if he became someone else? Vicki Grant is also the author of Pigboy, Dead-End Job, and Quid Pro Quo, which was nominated for several awards. Vicki earned numerous awards for her copy advertising work and is also a successful television scriptwriter. She created, wrote and co-produced the Gemini Award-winning Scoop and Doozie, a 65 episode series for CBC. Vicki lives in Halifax with her husband and three children.
Ragged Islands offers a portrait of a woman whose life has been shaped equally by family secrets and by the turbulent history of the twentieth century. It is September 2001, and eighty-five-year old Susan Ann Roberts lies dying in a Toronto hospital when she resolves to return to the places in the Maritimes that defined her as a young girl, wife and mother. Susan Ann was given away by her parents at birth, to be raised by relatives. Although she vowed that her own children would never feel unwanted, she fears that her son and daughter – hovering near her bedside – are more put out than caring. Meg, her granddaughter, is also nearby, but her dearest grandson Tommy is stuck in New York. Something is happening there — planes and buildings, people falling from the sky. . . Don Hannah is the author of the novel The Wise and Foolish Virgins and Shoreline, a collection of plays. In 2006, he was named the Lee Playwright in Residence at the University of Alberta. Born and raised in New Brunswick, he now divides his time between the South Shore of Nova Scotia and everywhere else.
Grand Manan Island is part of an archipelago of islands at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. Basaltic cliffs and underwater ledges contributed to the area around the island becoming famous for its shipwrecks, but there is much more to the island’s story. Historic Grand Manan catalogues with historic images and detailed captions the island’s geology and geography, lighthouses and landmarks, fishing industry, transportation, schools, churches, businesses and homes, people and community life, and the smaller Wood Island. From the first visits of Norse explorers around 1000 AD, to the early 1950s when the island’s roads were being paved for the first time, Grand Manan’s history is thoroughly captured. Elaine Ingalls Hogg, inspirational speaker and author, was born on the island of Grand Manan. She now lives near Sussex, New Brunswick. She is also the author of the best-selling When Canada Joined Cape Breton.
The White Iris mimics the lavish drama of opera buffa, with a blend of green-gourd-marmalade-sauce, arias sung in the key of high H, bladderwort, water diamonds, Northumberland mirages, champagne cocktails and disadvantaged vegetables. It is an exploration of unsinkable hope through the eyes of three unforgettable characters. Mirabella Stuart suffers from compulsion mania. Fiddy Washburn thinks of herself as Desdamona Pacifica and "remembers" her triumphs at La Scala and The Met. Garden Twinkle is an agent of the APT Society - Animals are People Too! These three eccentric women clash in the idyllic Nova Scotia village of Marshy Hope when Fiddy burns down her dirty, dilapidated house, which stands - or previously stood - next door to Mirabella's spotless, comfortless mobile home, and the APT Agent, scouting for infractions of the Clean Environment Act, sees the smoke and flame, smells the gasoline, and arrives screaming "Think of the grass! Think of the grass!" Born in Antigonish, Sandy MacDonald was raised in the fishing village of Arisaig, on the coast of the Northumberland Strait where six generations of his Scottish ancestors lived and worked. He attended St. Francis Xavier University, receiving an honours degree in business administration and economics, and went on to study law at the University of New Brunswick. The White Iris is his first novel.
Combustion welcomes the reader into a place where the strange is made familiar and the familiar reveals its own magic. Here the combustible materials of childhood and old age are always potentially present, and the attention paid them multi-dimensional. Her poems engage their subjects with wits and senses on full alert, whether the occasion is an encounter with the full moon during a lonely drive across the prairies, a raucous community dance at the oldest dance hall in the Maritimes, or the opening of the door into "the small town inside". Reaching from nature to human nature, often drawn by the long line and the hum of loss, Lorri Neilsen Glenn explores a full range of poetic possibilities. Lorri Neilsen Glenn was born and raised in Western Canada and moved to Nova Scotia in 1983. An ethnographer and essayist, she is the author and editor of six academic books on research and literacy. Her first book of poems, all the perfect disguises, appeared in 2003. She was appointed Poet Laureate for Halifax for 2005-2009.
Harry Thurston was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and
has lived most of his life in his native province. For the last 25 years
he has travelled widely as a freelance writer for many of North America's
leading magazines, including Audubon, Canadian Geographic, Harrowsmith,
and National Geographic. He has served as a contributing editor
of Equinox since its inception in 1981. His work has garnered
several national journalism awards. Harry currently lives in Tidnish
Bridge, with his wife and daughter. |
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Wave
Warrior 
A
Watch in the Night: The Story of Pomquet Island’s Last Lightkeeping
Family
Ragged
Islands 
The
White Iris 
Combustion
