Following an awkward sexual encounter under a wharf in outport Newfoundland, sixteen-year-old Rowena Savoury travels to St. John’s for a secret abortion. But in the early 1970s, the procedure is illegal, and after complications, Rowena finds herself in a hospital being questioned by a young constable who is uncertain of how to proceed. Though she …

A novel of remarkable historical breadth, Found Far and Wide follows Sam Kennedy through the tragedy of the Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914, the horrors of The First World War, and the dangers of rum-running in Prohibition-era New York. And as Sam journeys through the turbulent first half of the twentieth century, carrying the ghosts of …

Chad Pelley’s Four-Letter Words, his collection of award-winning short stories, presents us with characters haunted by one four-letter word or another: love, hate, lust, or loss. A father drives across the island hoping to find his missing son, a hitman considers the life of his female victim while watching her through his scope, a lonely man fre …

In this long-awaited biography, author Harvey Sawler traces the life of Ron Hynes, one of the most respected singer-songwriters in Canadian history. Through personal conversations and interviews, Sawler captures the spirit of an artist whose stock-in-trade has always been authenticity over mere commercial acceptability, providing rare insight into …

Based on a true story, Dancing in a Jar elaborates on the real-life love affair of a young couple who leave New York City to live in the outport community of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, during the Great Depression when the husband, Don Poynter, accepts a management position in the town’s fluorspar mine. In a series of letters, some fictional and …

Newfoundland and Labrador had three premiers in a single year-- three and a half, if you count Frank Coleman. An elected politician broke down crying on live radio. In less than eighteen months, the Official Opposition went from six to sixteen members.For Canada's easternmost province, the lead-up to the 2015 general election was the most turbulent …

In Racket, editor and acclaimed fiction writer Lisa Moore introduces us to ten of the most exciting new writers currently at work in Newfoundland. Featuring a diverse range of previously unpublished short stories, this unique anthology showcases a generation of voices soon to emerge as the next great wave of Newfoundland writers.

Shunned as an outsider and mistreated due to an undiagnosed learning disability, the young and imaginative Mari-Jen Delene retreats into silence. Around her, the fictional community of Ste. Noire, Cape Breton, hosts a vividly drawn cast of characters: the uncompromising and bitter Mother Superior; the dangerous Uncle Jule; the kind-hearted holocaus …

Claude Tremblay works as a political analyst at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. But when the Congolese warlord Kabanga, accused of crimes against humanity, is released from trial due to a procedural error, Claude resigns his post and follows the accused back to his home country in search of justice. In The World, the Lizard, and Me, …

Now in its seventh year, the Cuffer Prize is sponsored by The Telegram and Creative Book Publishing in St. John’s. It showcases some of the best short fiction from Newfoundland and Labrador writers, both new and established. Entries in 2013 delved into a wide variety of themes — friendships, relationships, the tight bonds between people and ani …

On the morning of July 1, 1916, at Beaumont-Hamel, the men of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment climbed out of their trenches and advanced into no man’s land. Eric Mackenzie Robertson went over the top on that fateful day—and survived. Almost unbelievably, just four years later, Robertson would become the first born and bred Newfoundlander to com …

LIla is dead. And the likely suspects are all men: her flash-in-the-pan literary husband, a washed up golf pro turned criminal with a cocaine habit, and two small-time thugs looking for the perfect score. As a crime novel for a new age, this is sex, drugs, and a story that unfolds as a map of bad intentions. In One Hit Wonders, Patrick Warner weave …

Few today have ever heard of Dora Russell (1912-1986), let alone read any of her work. At best, some might recognize the name of the wife of Ted Russell, the creator of Uncle Mose and the fictitious outport of Pigeon Inlet. But Dora was also a writer, as prolific (maybe even more so) as her husband. She was certainly much more than just the woman b …

One has lost a child and paints her house blue, another has found a not-so-handy man she can’t get rid of; one perches in a tree and observes the neighbourhood, and yet another goes off into the woods with Jesus. These are some of the “wild pieces” that fill Catherine Hogan Safer’s remarkable new book, Wild Pieces – characters as wry and …

First in Line: The Incredible Life of Leonard Stick documents the life of Leonard Stick, a distinguished war veteran, lawman and federal politician who was the ‘first’ in many historically significant events throughout his lifetime. Stick was the first man to enlist with the Newfoundland Regiment, regional No. 1, when it was reconstructed at th …

In this lively autobiography, popular historian Paul O’Neill looks back on his salad days in the 1940s and early 50s. O’Neill’s childhood in the small outport of Bay de Verde was filled with ‘outharbour delights’ while his star-struck teen years were spent in wartime St. John’s, a city he grew to love like no other. At nineteen O’Neil …

Deeply darkly humourous, this is a whimsical tale as shared by one Bridie Savage. When a cat creeps in a little fog feet one must expect life to fall askew. Or is it when life falls apart that there is finally room for miracles and mayhem? Not just for cat lovers. But be warned. This book may lead the way to joy inducing hope for ridiculous magic.

Ledger of the Open Hand looks at the intimate power of money and emotional debt through the eyes of a woman trying to grab hold of her own life. Beholden to a shrewd friend and burdened by family obligations and guilt, Meriel-Claire (MC) finally stumbles into what she’s been missing. She falls in love and finds her calling as a debt counsellor in …

From the publication of his first collection, The Elusive Resurrection, in 1966, to his death in 2001 at the age of sixty-one, Al Pittman stood as one of the most respected and admired poets in Newfoundland. This definitive edition spans nearly four decades of poetic production, reprints each of Pittman’s remarkable collections, and includes prev …

Stephen Rowe’s geo•logics—his highly anticipated follow-up to Never More There—binds the impermanent to the permanent. With sustained inquiries into loss and reason, Rowe seeks a motivation capable of accepting pain, and reveals the outlines of our temporary lives backlit by a radiant sense of time’s passage. These poems quietly unearth t …

On their march towards the Somme, and Beaumont Hamel, the young men of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment raised their voices to sing “When the Great Red Dawn is Shining,” a song about returning home to the people they love. Howard Morry was one of the young men who managed to make it back. And now, one hundred years after the events that changed …

From RockRecipes.com creator Barry C. Parsons’ home kitchen to yours – Rock Recipes: The Best Food from my Newfoundland Kitchen gathers together some of the most popular dishes Parsons has ever posted – and includes a healthy serving of brand new fare as well! A self-described “lifelong food obsessive”, Parsons has spent years developing …

The fishery, the seal cull, the settlement, the culture—the history of Newfoundland and Labrador has been shaped and witnessed from the deck of sea-going vessels, and those vessels were sparred with local timbers, planked and rigged by the hands of our master shipbuilders. In this companion volume to its highly successful predecessor, author Calv …

Eating Habits Of The Chronically Lonesome will leave you struck, yet, exhilarated. The exploration of starvation and consumption is at the core of each character; what does our hunger reveal about the state of our soft hearts? Ellen jumps rope on rooftops in the searing Korean sun. She has sworn off carbohydrates until she can find pants that fit. …

In this sequel to the national bestseller The Man in the Red Suit, we continue our journey with readers as we explore the true meaning of Christmas. Santa invites us along for his visits with the young and the old, the healthy and those in medical need – including the infants in the Children’s Hospital on Christmas Eve. These are heartwarming s …

On a June night in 1980, the Linehan household in North Harbour went up in flames. In moments the fire consumed the family’s ordinary, loving lives and innocent, human faith that life would always be as it was. Ida, the middle of three girls and one of ten siblings, survived the blaze only to endure weeks and months of treatment and recovery. Her …

When a devastating fire sweeps through St. John's, Newfoundland, in the summer of 1892, nineteen-year-old Lily Hunt hopes it's the beginning of a new life that will transform her from a dutiful daughter to a crusader, a suffragist, and a woman in love. Twenty years later, Lily's daughter Grace is deeply immersed in campaigning for women to have the …

African-American serviceman Lanier Phillips was just eighteen years old when he was rescued from a sinking warship off the coast of Newfoundland in 1942 – a turn of events that transformed his life and ignited a lasting passion for civil rights. The son of sharecroppers from the Deep South, and the great-grandson of slaves, Lanier knew only hatre …

Mary Immaculate is just twelve years old the day she goes missing. Berry-picking in the woods near her village in outport Newfoundland, Mary has an encounter with something from another world. When she is finally found, Mary is taken to hospital in St. John’s, where her attending doctor makes the decision to adopt her out of poverty. Duley’s au …

Produced in partnership with Egale Canada Human Rights Trust, Out Proud: Stories of Pride, Courage, and Social Justice is the second in a series of essay anthologies designed to give attention to issues that are sometimes ignored in the mainstream media—and a voice to those most closely affected by them. Expertly edited by sociologist Dr. Douglas …

Acclaimed poet George Murray and award-winning painter Michael Pittman team up for their first-ever childrens’ picture book. Wow Wow the fox pup has learned a lot about the hows and whys of being a fox. He knows how to hunt and hide, and he’s very proud of his red and white and black fur. But he doesn’t know much about fleas, until the day he …

Picking up where Edge of Time left off, Time of Treason continues the story of Riley and Alec, otherwise normal teens whose special genetic traits grant them powers they are only now learning to control – powers that also make them targets for the extraterrestrial Tyons. Riley and Alec travel back in time to the start of their adventures, courtes …

Queer Monologues: Stories of LBGT Youth, produced by For the Love of Learning (FTLOL), offers queer youth a safe, creative outlet to share their concerns, hopes, and personal stories with the community-at-large. If an individual is unable to be themselves, the consequences can be emotional, physical, and mental harm. When feelings are shared within …

At age ninety-two, Ivadoile Spears is in the grip of early dementia. Alone except for a cat named Rose and an old cedar box filled with photographs, Ivadoile is stubbornly set on living out her remaining years in the now-vacant Tides Inn on Cape Breton Island. The only child of cold and withdrawn parents and widowed by the age of twenty-eight, a yo …

Two young men and a girl go scavenging for fossils—but find something entirely different instead. A girl inherits a baby from the estate of her older sister. An apparently aimless young man turns out to have surprising powers. From Journey Prize-nominee Nicholas Ruddock comes an outstanding new collection of short fiction. How Loveta Got Her Baby …

Levi Conley has spent his life making a hard living off the water. Fishing defines who he is. But after being betrayed by his business partners, who are also his brothers, he flees out west for the “big bucks” promised by work as an apprentice welder. The work is well-paid, as promised, but it is also hazardous. And there is the unexpected coll …

I always knew I’d be the perfect mother. So far, I’ve perfected the fetal position. When Vicki Murphy brought her new baby home from the hospital, she expected to be greeted by fluttering butterflies and harp-strumming cherubs. You know: the way it is in diaper commercials and the “Yay, You’re Preggers!” books. LIAR, LIAR, MATERNITY PANTS …

Strays, Ed Kavanagh’s first work of fiction since the award-winning novel The Confessions of Nipper Mooney, features ten memorable stories that explore the lives of those who somehow find themselves adrift. In “The Strayaway Child” a ninety-year-old woman recalls her girlhood during the Great Depression when she was a “sad, silent little no …

A mysterious letter has reached retired FBI agent Frank Malloy. A letter bearing a name from a lifetime ago, from a woman who claims she saw what really happened on the day John F. Kennedy died in Dallas. Many were there to film the president, but Helena Storozhenko snapped a photo on November 22, 1963, that would have changed everything. Then she …

A stunning personal account of Janet Merlo's twenty years of service in the RCMP, with an introduction by Linden MacIntyre. In 2012, Janet Merlo was among the first female RCMP officers to publicly allege she had experienced sexual harassment and gender discrimination while serving in Canada's national police force. The women kept silent for so lon …

The fishery, the seal cull, the settlement, the culture—the history of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador has been shaped and witnessed from the deck of sea-going vessels, and those vessels were sparred with local timbers, planked and rigged by the hands of our master shipbuilders. From east to west, north to south, Calvin Evans covers eve …

After her mother dies, fourteen year old Zoe is whisked away to Newfoundland to live with a father she has never met. In the tiny village of Port au Choix, she gets caught up in solving the mystery of finding the habitation site of the Maritime Archaic Indian, an ancient culture that lived in the area more than four thousand years ago. At the same …

Imagine a new life. Maxine Carter suddenly finds herself searching for a fresh start—a way around her own gnawing fear of an untimely death and a wasted life. What she discovers is her neighbour’s nine-year-old son, Kyle. As Maxine becomes the boy’s constant companion and as Kyle deals with his parents’ increasing absence and with life as a …

If you could take just one thing back… Every Little Thing explores how lives are shaped by the butterfly effect of decisions that go desperately wrong. After a shocking family tragedy, Cohen Davies feels isolated, guilty, and numb to everything except the allure of his new neighbor, Allie Crosbie. She’s a free spirit, and he sees in her the per …

In the early hours of October 14, 1942, under cover of darkness, the German submarine U-69 torpedoed and sank the passenger ferry SS Caribou off the southwest coast of Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.

Now, seventy years later, writer and artist Jennifer Morgan recreates that eventful night in full colour. These vivid illustrations, in comic book form …

FREELANCE WRITER AND PLAYWRIGHT Joan Sullivan’s book In the Field is a work of non-fiction that tells the story of one young Newfound¬lander soldier, Stephen Norris, lost in WWI, and how his death affected his family, his community, and, decades later, an entirely new generation. In 2004, a high school theatre class creates a musical about the N …

WINNER OF THE 2011 Fresh Fish Award for Emerging Writers, Lesleyanne Ryan’s debut novel, Braco, takes place over the five days fol¬lowing the fall of Srebrenica in 1995. The narrative follows the perspectives of Bosnian civilians, UN Peacekeepers, Serbian and Bosnian soldiers, as well as a Canadian photojournalist. A retired veteran and former B …

The first St. John’s taxi stand started up in the early-20th Century and greatly expanded prior to the Second World War. There are now almost four hundred taxis operating within the city limits. The Other Side of Midnight: Taxi Cab Stories is not a traditional history of taxi cabs in St. John’s. It describes the commonly shared experiences of a …

The Mean Time is a work of literary fiction set in Corner Brook about how people allow their pasts to shape and define them – in holding on to dread, regret, and pain.

The death of Will Johnston shakes the community to its foundations, and Frank Doyle’s marriage is frayed by his involvement in the death. Torn by guilt and unable to let go, Frank …

During the past 33 years, St. John's businessman Bruce Templeton has devoted the month of December to visiting children and assisting Santa Claus. In his memoir of three decades he shares some of the most unforgettable questions.