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list price: $18.95
edition:Paperback
category: Fiction
published: Sep 1999
ISBN:9780864922694
publisher:
Goose Lane Editions
Description
"Going down the road" is part of the tradition of Atlantic Canada, but just as strong a tradition is coming back home for Christmas. When writers think of Christmas, home is on their minds, for better and for worse. Many of the stories in Home for Christmas relate to family, absent family or chosen families. A little sorrow, some ambivalence and a lot of joy visit Maritimers and Newfoundlanders at their Christmas tables. Following the success of Gifts to Last: Christmas Stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland, Goose Lane is proud to present this all-new collection of Christmas stories. Like Gifts to Last, Home for Christmas contains stories by the region's finest writers, ranging from Lucy Maud Montgomery to Lynn Coady to Wayne Johnston. A few stories appear in Home for Christmas for the first time. Others are selected from books, including the funny yet poignant account of Hilda Porter's last Christmas from The Last Tasmanian by Herb Curtis and "Another Christmas," Ann Copeland's beautiful story of Sister Claire Delaney's first Christmas in the convent. Some authors, such as Maureen Hull and Kelly Cooper, are building strong reputations in literary periodicals, while others, including Harry Bruce and Mark Tunney, editor of The New Brunswick Reader, are journalists. In all, over 20 writers join their voices to make Home for Christmas express the wondrous variety of human nature and our longing for connection at Christmastime.
About the Authors
Sabine Campbell co-edited Fiddlehead Gold, an anthology marking the 50th anniversary of Canada's oldest literary magazine. As managing editor of The Fiddlehead and a member of its editorial staff since 1985, she knows the work of almost every writer in and from the Maritimes and Newfoundland.
Jess Bond was born and raised in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. A graduate of the University of New Brunswick and Fredericton Teachers' College, she taught elementary school in Fredericton for several years and then moved to Scarborough, Ontario, where she taught for twenty years. Now retired, she lives near Belleville, Ontario.
Ann Copeland, a native of Connecticut, lived in Sackville, New Brunswick, for twenty-five years before moving to Salem, Oregon, in 1996. A popular fiction writing instructor at workshops in Canada, the US, and New Zealand, she is the author of The ABCs of Writing Fiction and six books of stories. The Golden Thread, linked stories about Sister Claire Delaney, was a finalist for a 1990 Governor General's Award; "Another Christmas," first published in the Fiddlehead, is part of Strange Bodies on a Stranger Shore, the sequel to The Golden Thread.
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.
Kelly Cooper grew up in the tiny farming community of Senlac, Saskatchewan, where she vaccinated, branded, and ear-tagged cattle, sorted calves on foot and on horseback, drove cattle to pasture on horseback, and drove a tractor and a three-ton truck. A graduate of the University of Saskatchewan, Cooper taught high school English and later moved to Belleisle Creek, New Brunswick, with her husband, where until recently, she worked as an art teacher. The only girl among siblings and cousins, she routinely did "men's work," and now works with her husband on their dairy farm. Cooper's stories have been published the Fiddlehead, Room of One's Own, Descant, Grain, Prairie Fire, the Malahat Review, and the Windsor Review. They have been featured in anthologies such as Coming Attractions '02, Water Studies, and Home for Christmas. "River Judith" won the Fiddlehead Fiction Prize, and an early version of Eyehill won the prestigious David Adams Literary Award. Eyehill is her long-awaited first book.
Sue Sinclair grew up on the ancestral homelands of the Beothuk in Newfoundland and is currently living on Wəlastəkwiyik Territory, where she teaches creative writing at the University of New Brunswick. She is the author of five previous collections of poetry, all nominated for or winners of national or regional awards. Sinclair edits poetry for Brick Books and is also editor of the Fiddlehead.
Mark Tunney is the editor of The New Brunswick Reader. Born in Toronto, he has lived in New Brunswick since 1982. Although he has been a journalist for many years, this is the first time his work has appeared in a book.
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.
Ray Guy was a Newfoundland journalist and humourist best known for his satirical newspaper and magazine columns. He was born in Come By Chance, Placentia Bay, to George Hynes and Alice Louise Guy, but was raised and schooled in Arnold’s Cove, the community that was to provide fodder for many of his columns.
Guy studied journalism at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute. After graduation, he wrote for the St. John’s Evening Telegram 1963–1974, and his columns also appeared in magazines such as Atlantic Insight and the Newfoundland Quarterly. His writings included political satire and humorous essays on life in a Newfoundland outport, and his columns in the Evening Telegram often criticized the policies and ridiculed the excesses of Premier Joseph Smallwood, during a time when political opposition to Smallwood was ineffectual. In 1977, Ray Guy received the Stephen Leacock Award for the collection, That Far Greater Bay. In 1979, Gordon Pinsent created Up at Ours, a half-hour CBC St. John’s television series that starred Mary Walsh as the owner of a boarding house and Ray Guy as the principal boarder. In 1985, Walsh appeared in and directed a stage play written by Guy, Young Triffie’s Been Made Away With, which Walsh directed as a film in 2006, promoted in some markets under the shorter title Young Triffie. Guy also appeared as a commentator on the CBC St. John’s news program Here & Now.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2001. Guy also wrote a monthly column for the Northeast Avalon Times. Other books to Ray Guy’s credit include You May Know Them As Sea Urchins, Ma’am (1975), Outhouses of the East (1978), Beneficial Vapors (1981), An Heroine for Our Time (1983), This Dear and Fine Country (1985), Ray Guy’s Best (1987), and Ray Guy: The Smallwood Years (2008).
Ray Guy passed away on May 14, 2013 in St. John’s, NL.
Syr Ruus was born in Estonia at the start of the Second World War. As a small child, she escaped with her mother to Germany. After the war ended they lived in various DP camps before immigrating to the United States where she grew up and received her education. In 1970, she moved to Nova Scotia, working as a teacher while raising her three children. She has written a prize-winning juvenile novel and published short fiction in anthologies and journals. Lovesongs of Emmanuel Taggart is the recipient of the H.R. (Bill) Percy Prize from the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia.
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.
Edward “Ted” Russell was born in Coley’s Point, Conception Bay, in 1904. At sixteen, he undertook his first teaching assignment at Pass Island. For the next twenty-three years, he worked in outport communities as a teacher and later a magistrate. In 1943 he moved to St. John’s to accept the position of Director of Co-operatives for the Commission of Government.
After a brief stint in politics (a member of the first Smallwood cabinet), Ted returned to teaching. But he also found a new opportunity to give expression to the more creative side of his nature. In 1953 he was offered a spot on CBC Radio’s Fishermen’s Broadcast as Uncle Mose. The highly successful “The Chronicles of Uncle Mose” continued until 1962. During this period Ted also wrote several radio plays, all of which were broadcast by CBC. The last years of his working life were spent on the faculty of Memorial University (English department) from which he retired in 1973. He died four years later.
Ted married Dora Oake (of Change Islands) in 1934. They had five children: Rhona, Elizabeth “Betty,” June, Margaret “Peggy,” and Kelly.
Edward “Ted” Russell was born in Coley’s Point, Conception Bay, in 1904. At sixteen, he undertook his first teaching assignment at Pass Island. For the next twenty-three years, he worked in outport communities as a teacher and later a magistrate. In 1943 he moved to St. John’s to accept the position of Director of Co-operatives for the Commission of Government.
After a brief stint in politics (a member of the first Smallwood cabinet), Ted returned to teaching. But he also found a new opportunity to give expression to the more creative side of his nature. In 1953 he was offered a spot on CBC Radio’s Fishermen’s Broadcast as Uncle Mose. The highly successful “The Chronicles of Uncle Mose” continued until 1962. During this period Ted also wrote several radio plays, all of which were broadcast by CBC. The last years of his working life were spent on the faculty of Memorial University (English department) from which he retired in 1973. He died four years later.
Ted married Dora Oake (of Change Islands) in 1934. They had five children: Rhona, Elizabeth “Betty,” June, Margaret “Peggy,” and Kelly.
Ephie Carrier is retired and lives at Dumfries, New Brunswick. Born in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, he has lived in many parts of Canada and travelled all over the world. For the past several years he has been writing and telling stories for Storyfest New Brunswick. He is co-author with Jan Andrews of a children's book, Harvest (1999). His story "Just Pick Up the Sticks" appeared in Echoes (Maine).
Patrick O’Flaherty is a professor emeritus in the Department of English at Memorial University.
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 Weale is a folk historian and a popular storyteller and stage performer. He has written thirteen books, four of which are for children. David co-created and wrote The True Meaning of Crumbfest, an animated Christmas special for children, seen in more than twenty-five countries around the world, as well as Eckhart, an animated TV series for children. He is the father of five children and presently lives with his dog, Breaker, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
David Weale is a folk historian and a popular storyteller and stage performer. He has written thirteen books, four of which are for children. David co-created and wrote The True Meaning of Crumbfest, an animated Christmas special for children, seen in more than twenty-five countries around the world, as well as Eckhart, an animated TV series for children. He is the father of five children and presently lives with his dog, Breaker, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
Paul Bowdring is the author of three previous novels, The Roncesvalles Pass, The Night Season, and The Strangers’ Gallery, the latter the winner of the BMO Winterset Award and a nominee for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He has worked for many years as an English teacher and editor. He was a longtime editor of TickleAce magazine and is currently an associate editor with The Fiddlehead. He lives in St. John’s, NL.
Clarissa Hurley, a writer and actor, lives in Fredericton. Her story "Women and Linen Look Best in the Dark" won first prize for short fiction in the 1998 New Brunswick Writers' Federation Competition.
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.
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.
A professor of literature and creative writing at St. Mary's University, Brian Bartlett (1953) won the 2000 Petra Kenney Poetry Competition. In 1997 he won the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize for the second time. He was born and raised in New Brunswick, and as an undergraduate at the University of New Brunswick, he was part of the circle of writers who gathered at "Windsor Castle," Alden Nowlan's home. Bartlett has published many books of poetry and non-fiction, including The Watchmaker's Table, Ringing Here & There: A Nature Calendar, and Wanting the Day: Selected Poems.
HARRY BRUCE is a Nova Scotian freelance journalist and author.
Susan Haley’s first two novels, A Nest of Singing Birds and Getting Married in Buffalo Jump, were made into movies for CBC-TV. Most recently she has published The Complaints Department (2000), Maggie's Family (2002) and The Murder of Medicine Bear (2003). Haley and her partner ran a charter airline in Fort Norman, Northwest Territories, for 15 years. She now lives in Black River, Nova Scotia.
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.
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.
Robert B. Richards is a retired librarian living in Fredericton. He has been a New Brunswicker forever and an on-again off-again contributor of poetry to different periodicals, notably The Fiddlehead and The Cormorant. His poetry chapbook Unfolding Fern was published by Spare Time Editions.
Mary Jane Losier wrote "Whisper to the Wind" in memory of her mother-in-law, Lina Robichaud. She is a co-author of The Children of Lazarus: The Story of the Lazaretto at Tracadie (1987) and the author of Amanda Viger: Spiritual Healer to New Brunswick's Leprosy Victims (1999). She is the Community Liaison Representative in Bathurst for the Department of Extension, University of New Brunswick, and she gives workshops on life writing to children and adults.
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