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list price: $19.95
edition:Paperback
category: Fiction
published: Oct 2001
ISBN:9780864923097
publisher:
Goose Lane Editions
Description
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.
About the Authors
Lesley Choyce is the author of over ninety books. He has won the Dartmouth Book Award, the Atlantic Poetry Prize, and the Ann Connor Brimer Award, and has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. He lives in East Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia.
Fiction writer, poet, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld lives on Prince Edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published twenty-two books: two novels, thirteen short story collections, and seven poetry collections, most recently, Somewhat Absurd, Somehow Existential (2021).
Joan Clark was born in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. She writes novels, short fiction, and novels for young adults. She has won numerous awards, including the Marian Engel Award, the Canadian Authors' Association Literary Award, the Mr. Christie Award, and the Jeffrey Bilson Award. Her most recent novel is Latitudes of Melt (2000). She lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.
Carol Bruneau is the award-winning author of nine books. Her reviews, essays, and articles have appeared across Canada, and she has previously taught courses on writing for the arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She lives in Halifax, NS.
Carol Bruneau is the award-winning author of nine books. Her reviews, essays, and articles have appeared across Canada, and she has previously taught courses on writing for the arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She lives in Halifax, NS.
Author of thirty-five books, David Adams Richards has won the Governor General's Award in both fiction and non-fiction as well as the Giller Prize. He is a member of the Order of New Brunswick, the Order of Canada, and was appointed to the Senate of Canada in 2017. He divides his time between Ottawa and Fredericton.
Bernice Morgan was born in preconfederate Newfoundland. She has worked for many years in public relations, first with Memorial University of Newfoundland, and later with Newfoundland Teachers’ Association. Many of her short stories have been published in small magazines, anthologies and school textbooks. The mother of two daughters and a son, she lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Random Passage, the 4-part television mini-series, based on her book, aired on CBC Television, beginning January 27, 2002.
Wayne Curtis was born in Keenan, New Brunswick, on the banks of the Miramichi River. He was educated at the local schoolhouse and at St. Thomas University. He started writing prose in the late 1960s. His essays have appeared in the Globe and Mail, Outdoor Canada, Fly Fishermen, and the Atlantic Salmon Journal.
Helen Fogwill Porter has published articles, stories, plays, and poems for six decades. Born and raised in St. John’s, as a writer, teacher, political activist, and feminist, she has received numerous awards, including an honorary doctorate and the Order of Canada. She now lives in Paradise, Newfoundland.
John Steffler is the author of six books of poetry, including Lookout, which was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. His novel The Afterlife of George Cartwright won the Smithbooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. From 2006 to 2008 he was Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada. John lives in Maberly, Ontario.
Budge Wilson is a Fitzhenry and Whiteside author
Donna Morrissey (b. 1956) grew up in the isolated western Newfoundland community of The Beaches, where, she says, "There were twelve families and we didn't talk to six of them." She studied at memorial University in St. John's, lived in various other parts of Canada, and makes her home in Halifax. Her first novel, Kit's Law (Penguin, 1999), the source of "Grieving Nan," won the National Booksellers Association Libris Award and garnered international praise.
Alistair MacLeod was born in Saskatchewan but was raised in Cape Breton. He has published three short story collections: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, As Birds Bring Forth the Sun, and Island: The Collected Stories. His novel, No Great Mischief, won many honours including the Trillium Award for Fiction, the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Lynn Coady now lives in Edmonton, though she was born and raised in Cape Breton. She has published a collection of short stories, Play the Monster Blind, and four novels. Her first novel, Strange Heaven, was nominated for the 1998 Governor General's Award for Fiction, while her latest novel, The Antagonist, was shortlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Anne Simpson is one of Canada's rising stars. Her story "Dreaming Snow" won the Journey Prize, and her first novel, Canterbury Beach, was a finalist for the Chapters/Robertson Davies Prize and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Her first poetry collection, Light Falls Through You, won the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the Gerald Lampert Award and was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award; her second, collection was Loop. After spending a year as writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, she has returned to her home in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
Herb Curtis was raised near Blackville, on the Miramichi, and now lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick. His collection of short fiction, Luther Corhern's Salmon Camp Chronicles (1999), was nominated for the Stephen Leacock Award. The Last Tasmanian (1991, 2001), one of four novels, garnered the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and was a regional finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
David Helwig (1938-2018) grew up in Ontario and lived in Belfast, Prince Edward Island. He founded the Best Canadian Stories series, and he was the author of sixteen books of fiction and numerous works of non-fiction, including poetry, memoir, documentary and translation. His most recent work of fiction was Close to the Fire (Goose Lane, 1999), a novella, and the novel, The Time of Her Life (Goose Lane, 2000). "Missing Notes" appeared in ArtsAtlantic (61) and was selected for 98: Best Canadian Stories.
Maureen Hull was born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. She worked in the costume department of the Neptune Theatre in Halifax and now when not writing, she fishes lobster with her husband. The have two daughters.
Wayne Johnston was born in Goulds, Newfoundland. He has written five novels, of which The Navigator of New York (2002) is the latest. His previous novel, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (1998), was nominated for the most prestigious fiction awards in Canada; it won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize and the Canadian Authors' Association Award for Fiction. His memoir, Baltimore's Mansion (1999), was awarded the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.
Sheldon Currie (b. 1934), a native of Reserve, Cape Breton, and a resident of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, taught for many years at St. Francis Xavier University. "The Glace Bay Miner's Museum" first appeared in the collection, The Glace Bay Miner's Museum (Deluge, 1979). It was the basis of the feature film, Margaret's Museum, which Currie subsequently rewrote as a novella, and it is included in the collection, The Story So Far (Breton Books, 1997).
Editorial Reviews
"The truffles of the fiction chocolate box . . . offer[s] established stars and newer lights . . . In this collection, story is not only essential, but both profound and prismatic . . . if you like well-wrought stories, you will find plenty here to savour." — Globe and Mail
"The editor draws upon some of the best known names in fiction . . . A great gift for the brooding, serious fiction lover in the family, and those too who simply enjoy a good story." — Newfoundland Herald
"The editor draws upon some of the best known names in fiction . . . A great gift for the brooding, serious fiction lover in the family, and those too who simply enjoy a good story." — Newfoundland Herald
"The truffles of the fiction chocolate box . . . offer[s] established stars and newer lights . . . In this collection, story is not only essential, but both profound and prismatic . . . if you like well-wrought stories, you will find plenty here to savour." — Globe and Mail
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