The world has taken notice. From Alistair MacLeod's recent IMPAC literary award, through movies based on the work of David Adams Richards and Sheldon Currie, to the epic television series based on the work of Bernice Morgan, the international community has soundly acknowledged the critical and commercial success of Atlantic writers. Atlantica is the first major anthology of Atlantic fiction since Best Maritime Short Stories was published in 1988 and showcases stories by some of Canada's most exciting authors — established, newly popular, and emerging. Given the regional penchant for storytelling, it's not surprising that the Maritimes and Newfoundland produce a continuous stream of spellbinding writers. Among the stories in Atlantica are Anne Simpson's Journey Prize-winning "Dreaming Snow," Carol Bruneau's "The Tarot Reader," "Batter My Heart" by Lynn Coady, Bernice Morgan's "Poems in a Cold Climate" "The Train Family" by Joan Clark, "Missing Notes" by David Helwig, "The Party" by Herb Curtis and "Clearances" by Alistair MacLeod. Readers from "away" will recognize Sheldon Currie's hilariously gothic tale "The Glace Bay Miner's Museum" as the basis of Helena Bonham Carter's acclaimed movie Margaret's Museum. Some stories have been excerpted from novels, including David Adams Richards's The Bay of Love and Sorrows, Wayne Johnston's The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, John Steffler's The Afterlife of George Cartwright, and Donna Morrissey's Kit's Law. Remarkably diverse in age, style, and cultural identity, the writers in this anthology raise a common voice that defines Atlantic Canada. Each with an individual approach to language and writing, they offer a collective view of the east, conscious of tradition but not confined by it. By turns funny, poignant and pensive, the stories in Atlantica firmly place eastern Canadian culture on the world map of literature.

Atlantica: Stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland

Literature & Fiction

Wilson, Budge

JOHNSTON, Wayne

Choyce, Lesley

MacLEOD, Alistair

Bruneau, Carol

Curtis, Wayne

Morrissey, Donna

Morgan, Bernice

Currie, Sheldon

Coady, Lynn

Baxter, Joan

Simpson, Anne

Steinfeld, J.J.

Steffler, John

Helwig, David

Curtis, Herb

Hull, Maureen

Fogwill Porter, Helen

Adams Richards, David

Clark, Joan.

Contemporary

Goose Lane Editions

In a collection as fine in scope as it is intimate in detail, Running the Whale's Back presents a host of Eastern Canada's brightest literary talents, all putting pens to paper to explore the multiple facets of what we call "faith" through a unique Atlantic vantage point. In a satisfying mixture of styles and themes, the full breadth of Atlantic Canadian spirituality is revealed. These are pieces that poke and prod, ruminate and circulate with themes of religion and cultures of spirituality. Mysticism meets piety, holiness argues with practicality, and hope lives side by side with despair as the stories spiral and waltz themselves across the four provinces. As the authors leap from subject to subject, we discover death lurking in the lonely wilderness, ski jumpers participating in miracles, and preachers suffering marital discord. Featured authors are Michael Crummey, Sheldon Currie, Joan Clark, David Adams Richards, Kenneth J. Harvey, Clive Doucet, Deborah Joy Corey, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Michael Hennessey, Lynn Coady, D.R. MacDonald, Jessica Grant, Michael Winter, Samuel Thomas Martin, Michelle Butler Hallett, Kathleen Winter, and Ann Copeland.

Running the Whale's Back: Stories of Faith and Doubt from Atlantic Canada

Short Stories & Anthologies

Set in the early autumn of 1943, the These Good Hands interweaves the biography of French sculptor Camille Claudel and the story of the nurse who cares for her during the final days of her thirty-year incarceration in France's Montdevergues Asylum. Biographers have suggested that Claudel survived her long internment by writing letters, few of which left the asylum because of her strict sequestration; in Bruneau's novel, these letters are reimagined in a series, penned to her younger self, the sculptor, popularly known as Rodin's tragic mistress. They trace the trajectory of her career in Belle Époque Paris and her descent into the stigmatizing illness that destroyed it. The nurse's story is revealed in her journal, which describes her labours and the ethical dilemma she eventually confronts. Through her letters, Camille relives the limits of her perseverance, and through her journal, Nurse confronts the limits of hers; these limits include the faith these women have in themselves, in the then-current advances in psychiatric medicine, and in a God whose existence is challenged by the war raging outside the enclosed world of the asylum. In her dying days, Camille teaches the nurse lessons in compassion and, ultimately, in what it means to endure.

These Good Hands

Comics & Graphic Novels

Graphic Novels

Cormorant Books

Carol Bruneau, author of six acclaimed works of fiction (most recently, These Good Hands), brings her finely honed voice to 12 new stories about shifting concepts of Nova Scotian identity. In "The Race," a war bride's remarkable life trajectory unfolds as she competes in an international swim marathon in the Northwest Arm. Strain erupts between a Haligonian couple in "Burning Times," while they struggle to keep track of one another, both physically and emotionally, on an Italian vacation. In "Polio Beach," cousins gather oceanside over the will of a recently deceased aunt who once saved one of them from drowning. Writing with empathy, humour, and linguistic precision, Bruneau follows characters who find themselves connected to Nova Scotia by birth, through attempts at escape and new beginnings, or as a temporary resting place, always carrying with them their own idiosyncratic and complex definitions of "home."

A Bird on Every Tree

Literary

Vagrant Press

It's 1943. Enman and Una Greene are newly married. Each is haunted by their respective pasts, and each harbours secrets. They have hopes of a happy life together―though they have little idea how to create such a life. Enman brings Una to his childhood home in rural Barrein, Nova Scotia, where he hopes they will stay. Una is restless and feeling increasingly trapped, and longs for the city life she once had. Una meets a mysterious man, and then a body washes up on a beach. There are rumours of German sailors roaming the dunes. When the Greenes receive the news they have been waiting for, and that Una is convinced will save her and her marriage, she begins to unravel in ways neither is prepared for. From critically acclaimed and bestselling author Carol Bruneau comes an achingly honest portrait of a marriage in a time of war―and an examination of how it is that we come to know ourselves.

A Circle on the Surface

A brilliant novel reimagining the life of internationally renowned folk artist Maud Lewis by an award-winning author. But I had known since forever that it's colours that keep the world turning, that keep a person going. One glimpse of the tiny painted house that folk art legend Maud Lewis shared with her husband, Everett, in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, during the mid-twentieth century and the startling contrast between her joyful artwork and her life's deprivations is evident. One glimpse at her photo and you realize, for all her smile's shyness, she must've been one tough cookie. But, beneath her iconic resilience, who was Maud, really? How did she manage, holed up in that one-room house with no running water, married to a miserly man known for his drinking? Was she happy, or was she miserable? Did painting save or make her Everett's meal ticket? And then there are the darker secrets that haunt her story: the loss of her parents, her child, her first love. Against all odds, Maud Lewis rose above these constraints--and this is where you'll find the Maud of Brighten the Corner Where You Are: speaking her mind from beyond the grave, freed of the stigmas of gender, poverty, and disability that marked her life and shaped her art. Unfettered and feisty as can be, she tells her story her way, illuminating the darkest corners of her life. In possession of a voice all her own, Maud demonstrates the agency that hovers within us all.

Brighten the Corner Where You Are: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Maud Lewis

No Ordinary Magic: The Art of Laurie Swim

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Claudia Gahlinger, Lynn Coady, Joan Clark, Beatrice MacNeil, Susan Zettell, Sherry D. Ramsey, Jean McNeil, Kim Williamson, Tessie Gillis, Ann-Marie MacDonald, D. C. Troicuk, Tricia Fish, Erin McNamara, Teresa O’Brien, Ellen Frith and Carol Bruneau. Starting with Tessie Gillis, women have been writing the non-traditional story of Cape Breton Island; the deeper, sometimes darker, side. They offer here a rich, rare view of being young, of being old, even of being a man. The stories in The Day the Men Went to Town are about fisherwomen and aliens from space, the poignancy of family life, and tragedy in the coal mines. They are about several approaches to love. They are entertaining, thought-provoking, and introduce us to the new world of Canadian writing. Some of these writers have achieved fame, and several will be discoveries to you.

The Day the Men Went to Town: 16 Stories by Women From Cape Breton

MacNeil, Beatrice

McNEIL, Jean

Zettell, Susan

O'Brien, Teresa

MacDonald, Ann-Martie

Gahlinger, Cladia

Gillis, Tessie

Fish, Tricia

Frith, Ellen

MacNamara, Erin

Troicuk, D.C.

Williamson, Kim

Ramsey, Sherry D.

Breton Books

Purple for Sky

Genre Fiction

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