Building Bicycles in the Dark is a very practical primer on how to become a writer. It poses and answers such frequently asked questions as: "how do I become a writer?" "how do I write poetry?" "how do I write creative fiction?" "how do I write creative non-fiction?" "how do I get published?"  Building Bicycles in the Dark provides dozens of practical exercises on craft.  Award-winning poet John B. Lee speaks about the relationship between mentor and apprentice, and says the mentor seeks 'connection' and the apprentice seeks permission and affirmation. Of the latter, Lee writes, "But you do not need anyone's permission to write. You are born with the permission of the stars."

Building Bicycles in the Dark: A Practical Guide to Writing

Reference

Lee, John B.

Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

Black Moss Pr

The War of 1812 as it occurred in the western districts of Upper Canada represents the most violent conflict ever fought on North American soil prior to the American civil war. Published on the 200th anniversary of the invasion of Canada, Black Moss Press anthology An Unfinished War edited by Canada's foremost anthologist John B. Lee brings together the best literaturefrom the past along with new work by major Canadian writers. Beginning with a poem written in 1811 by John Strachan, "the fighting bishop of York," and including many fine excerpts from boy soldier Major John Richardson's novel, The Canadian Brothers, Lee's selections also include new work by elder statesman of Canadian poetry, Raymond Souster, Governor General Award winner Douglas Glover, and many more authors of great renown including several Poets Laureate. Major John Richardson's fictional description of life as a prisoner of war based upon his own first hand experience as a captive at the Battle of the Thames is juxtaposed to Doug Glover's new short story, "A Flame, a Burst of Light," wherein Glover relates the hallucinatory experiences of a fictional captive. The poem, "An Ode to the High Park Grenadier," tells the gothic story of a love affair between a woman walking though High Park in Toronto and the ghost of the grenadier who drowned in Grenadier pond during the battle of Fort York. Griffin Poetry prize winning poet, Margaret Avison's poem "The Valiant Vacationist," Barrie Poet Laureate Bruce Meyer's poem, "Victoria Square," and John B. Lee's poem, "Old Ironsides, Boston," all remind us of our present day relationship with events, places and artifacts of great historical significance. As we commemorate the anniversary of this long ago war, and as we struggle to honour the past, the literature gathered together in this important and fascinating anthology reminds us of truth of Nobel Laureate William Faulkner's words, "The past is never dead. It's not even the past." From the Battle of Tippecanoe to the Battle of New Orleans, from the death of Techumseh to the Ancaster Bloody Assize, from the surrender of Fort Detroit to the burning of York, from Billy Green, hero of the Battle of Stoney Creek to Swain Corliss, hero of Malcolm's Mills, these pieces bring to life the lives of both real and fictional heroes of a long ago though unforgotten war. For his part, Wallace Stegner, in an excerpt from his short story, "The Medicine Line," puts it this way: "It used to antagonize me, wondering whether or not the Canadians really did defeat the Americans at the Battle of Lundy's Lane during the War of 1812. The importance of the battle depended entirely on which side of the frontier you viewed it from."

Unfinished War: Poems, Stories, Essays and Excerpts from Novels and Plays on the War of 1812 in the Western District of Upper Canada

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

This is a book about superstition, life in rural Canada, and it will appeal to those who hunger for memoir, the way things were, and the curiosities of life that somehow can't be believed. Almost two hundred years ago author John B. Lee's great—great grandfather departed from Ireland for the new world with the prospect of establishing a homestead in what is now southwestern Ontario. As was the tradition the sendoff began with an American Wake, for those leaving and those left behind knew they would never see one another again. In a chapter of that title, Lee writes "They stood on those morbid piers watching the white ache of mast and cloth as they vanished west, a crow's nest lowered on the wet blue curve of that deep—water distance in an arcing line like the falling down of kites behind hills." Sometimes sad, sometimes lighthearted, but always poignant this memoir begins in the wilderness with wolves and bears and stone horses, moves quickly through the centuries to the apotheosis of the thriving tradition of the family farm and from there into the period of decline and decay where the elision of time has stolen the name from the side of the barn as letter by letter it fades and falls to ruin. An exploration of the relationship between the rational and the material world on the one hand, and the world of dream and imagination on the other, Lee's book closes with these words: I am making the world I am made from.

The Widow's Land: Superstition and farming... a madness of daughters

All the cats are gone (Penumbra Press poetry series)

Penumbra Press

John B. Lee's voyage of research, interviews, and travels began in his quest to learn more about his great-aunt who has served as a missionary in China. The result is this extraordinary book of discovery which takes readers back into the nineteenth century and through the tumultuous history of China during the early twentieth century. Only a master poet and historically acute person such as John B. Lee could begin this saga and complete it so convincingly.

Into a Land of Strangers: Documentary Poems

Mosaic Press

Mosaic Press published John B. Lee's book Into a Land of Strangers: Documentary Poems in 2019 in which he explores his own ancestry which involves the tumultuous decades of China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth Century. A School Called Normal: Poems & Stories extends the Poet's personal history of his own youth in small town rural Ontario.

A School Called Normal: Poems and Stories

Genre Fiction

The Hockey Player Sonnets: Overtime

This is How We See the World

Hidden Brook Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lee, John B.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lee, John B.