Pottersfield Press | Publisher | Atlantic Canada

NEW RELEASES

An Imperfect Healer

Every patient tells a story. Drawing on a forty-year medical career, Dr. Larry Kramer has written about some of the people he has met along the way. The stories chronicle love and loss, tragedy and comedy, and empathetically observe patients who live and die, some with courage and some with fear. These accounts frame the story of one physician's life and how it was shaped, changed, and guided by those he encountered every day.

Against the Grain

Many knew Dr. Savage as their physician. Others speak about his time as mayor of Dartmouth. Yet most remember him as Nova Scotia's twenty-third premier. From tackling the health and education systems to making turn-the-province-on-its head decisions while premier, John was determined to change the way things were done. "Against the Grain" chronicles how he fought the status quo with unwavering conviction to leave a lasting legacy that would change the province of Nova Scotia forever.

Sculpting Towards the Light

"Sculpting Towards the Light" is an intimate and insightful story of a sculptor and his work. It follows the paths of imagination and activity which gave birth to a very unique work of art. The paths are diverse and unexpected, twisting into personal history, racing forward into the future, and then resting in the euphoric moments when the mind and its thoughts no longer exist and the carving occurs as if of its own accord.

The Peddlers

This is the story of the leading roles some Nova Scotians played in the North American door-to-door sales profession in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. "The Peddlers" takes you on a door-to-door tour of the origins of household brands like Minard’s and Sloan’s Liniment, and also chronicles a century-old Hants County murder case involving two young peddlers — one the victim, the other the perpetrator.

Fixing Broken Things

Cook offers contemplative glances and lingering views on everyday life, as if observed through a window on the weather, landscape, and appearance or disappearance of things that matter. These observations act as mirrors that reflect the self and allow the merging of inner and outer worlds. The poet's rewards are discoveries of self and other in the magic visions and sounds that arise in combinations of words, like bits of winter ice reflecting prisms of light, life, and vision.

Colours in Winter

"Colours in Winter" is a whimsical children's picture book. The child, with her two bird friends, wishes that the giant snowflakes were coloured. Everything is too white. She thinks of green frogs in the spring, enormous red strawberries in the summer, and yellow and brown leaves in the autumn. Her desire becomes true and the snowflakes are suddenly all different colours. When everything turns back to white, she makes a wonderful discovery: there is colour everywhere in the winter.

Silver Linings

Janice Landry asks the very tough question, "What are you the most grateful for?" to fifteen inspiring Canadians from five provinces and two esteemed guests from the United States. Let's face it: it's easy to be grateful when things are running smoothly. The people in "Silver Linings" have discovered that gifts may actually emerge from life's toughest challenges.

Awakening My Heart

From Andrea Miller — an editor and staff writer at Lion's Roar, the leading Buddhist magazine in the English-speaking world — comes a diverse and timeless collection of essays, articles, and interviews. Miller, whose writing is by turns earnest and irreverent, unadorned and lyrical, talks to Buddhist teachers, thinkers, writers, and celebrities about the things that matter most and she frames their wisdom with her own lived experience.

Halifax Nocturne

December 1954: the old city in winter wears its two hundred years of grime and vice without any shame. On the street, hard-drinking Halifax police detective Ray Vargas has an unfailing habit for finding trouble, and when a man is found shot to death in the back of a Chevy truck, Vargas finds more trouble than he can handle — the murdered man is his oldest friend and the husband of his lover. Vargas sets off to find a killer in a city that doesn't much want a killer to be found.

Around the Province

Early on a May morning, a young Nova Scotia woman straps on a small backpack and leaves the Halifax common to start her journey along the coastal roads of Nova Scotia. Planning to cover almost a marathon a day, she will walk the perimeter of the entire province in just under three months to raise awareness for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Brigadoon Children's Camp Society. She stays with locals each night and meets countless Nova Scotians who walk with her and tell her their stories.

In Two Voices

Linda and Michael wrote "In Two Voices" together: it is the intimate account of Linda’s surgery with Michael as her surgeon. The story builds a piece at a time as Linda and Michael tell each other their experience and then respond to one another’s writing. As the relationship shifts from one of patient and surgeon to one of Linda and Michael as colleagues and friends, they encounter surprises as their trust and mutual understanding develop.

Elapultiek

Set in contemporary times, a young Mi’kmaw drum singer and a Euro-Nova Scotian biologist meet at dusk each day to count a population of endangered Chimney Swifts (kaktukopnji’jk). They quickly struggle with their differing views of the world. Through humour and story, the characters must come to terms with their own gifts and challenges as they dedicate efforts to the birds. Each "count night" reveals a deeper complexity of connection to land and history on a personal level.

Doing Time

Poetry can address our most intimate, frightened, hopeful selves. Langille found this to be true as she introduced poems to men and women in prison and gave writing assignments based on the discussions these poems inspired. Over and over participants shared private moments of self-awareness. The support they gave each other and the stories they told were profound. This book confirms that creative expression has a central place in the process of rehabilitation.

End of the Line

There was a time when railways criss-crossed Nova Scotia, carrying passengers and delivering mail, moving freight and produce, hauling timber, coal, gypsum, and iron ore. But those days have passed thanks in large measure to the advent of the automobile, improved highways, long-haul trucking, and the vagaries of market demands and resource extraction. "End of the Line" opens a window to the past, taking the reader for a nostalgic trip back in time on the abandoned Dominion Atlantic Railway.

The Legend of Gladee's Canteen

"The Legend of Gladee’s Canteen" tells the story of a popular Nova Scotia beach and a pioneer family who, against the odds, constructed a simple canteen at Hirtle’s Beach in 1951 and ran it for forty years. The book draws on the author’s family associations, personal memory, and the outlying stockpile of collective recollections — a tapestry of events woven through the evolutionary fabric of a small, relatively isolated Maritime coastal community.

Pottersfield Press

Publishing fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and Maritime interest books (with a focus on Mi'kmaq and African Nova Scotian) since 1979.

FEBRUARY IS AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH

The Way We Hold On

"The Way We Hold On" is Abena Beloved Green's debut book of poetry. Her poems address cultural, social, and environmental issues, relationships, and reflect on everyday life as a small-town raised, semi-nomadic, first-generation Canadian. Here are poems about holding on and letting go—of ideas, opinions, beliefs, people, places, and things.

Music in the Dark

This a compelling novel set in Prohibition-era Montreal when alcohol, drugs and jazz music ruled “Sin City.” Taylor Williams is a young black musician struggling to find fame in the Montreal Harlem District amid gangsters, racism, and bootleggers. As a young boy, Taylor escaped a terrifying ordeal that haunts him as he pursues his dream of becoming a famous jazz musician.

Winds of Change

Calvin Woodrow Ruck, born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, to Bajan immigrants, saw roadblocks not as barriers, but as hurdles that he would eventually leap over. From working in the steel plant and as a sleeping car porter to being awarded the Order of Canada and appointed to the Senate of Canada, Calvin worked diligently to ensure that his children, and his children’s children, wouldn’t have to go through the same things he went through.

Afraid of the Dark

Through prose and poetry, Guyleigh Johnson tells the story of sixteen-year-old Kahlua Thomas. An absent father and an alcoholic mother leave Kahlua feeling neglected, but her real pain stems from being black. She finds it hard surviving in a poor neighbourhood and even tougher society. She believes that if she doesn't acknowledge her thick hair, big lips, and dark skin maybe, just maybe, she'll be able to blend in. All Kahlua wants is freedom, whatever that really means.

Expect the Unexpected

This is a highly charged first collection of spoken word poetry based on the lives of inner city youth. It's deep, raw, uncut, and unflinching in telling their stories. Each poem will take you into the inner life of young people trying to survive in a hostile world.

Righting the Wrongs

During his 50 years in Nova Scotia, H.A.J. (Gus) Wedderburn fought social injustice in his home province. Described as a "lawyer with the soul of a social worker," he often worked pro bono and was a mentor to young people. A driving force for many years in the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, he was a founder of the Black Educators Association, the Black United Front, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission and the Black Cultural Centre.

Save the World for Me

A children's book of verse by Maxine Tynes. In 1988 Maxine was named the Milton Acorn People's Poet of Canada for her lively and intense writing.

Still Fighting for Change

Twenty authors create a conversation with the reader about the Black social workers in Canada who have struggled to bring change not for themselves, but for their communities. This volume contains stories of social workers breaking barriers as they fight for changes to improve the system and enhance the lives of those they serve. Included are stories of foster care, immigration, disability, poverty and how social workers deal with the everyday racism in education and in their practice.

Lush Dreams, Blue Exile

A collection of poems ranging from a personal evocation of Black Nova Scotian history to an intense, intimate response to world events in the last thirty years. All are "fugitive poems" evolving from 1979 to 1991.

IN THE NEWS

January 6, 2020: A review of Andrea Miller's "Awakening My Heart" by Buddhist Book Reviews.
November 21, 2019: A review of Blain Henshaw's "The Peddlers" by The Miramichi Reader
November 6, 2019: Janice Landry speaks to Stephanie Beaumont of the Sea and Be Scene and Heard Podcast about her new book "Silver Linings"
August 23, 2019: Author Larry Kramer discusses his upcoming book "An Imperfect Healer"
August 13, 2019: A review of Shalan Joudry's "Elapultiek"
July 28, 2019: Book Launch of Emily Taylor Smith's "Around the Province in 88 Days"
April 16, 2019: Book Launch of David Mossman's "The Legend of Gladee's Canteen"
November 15, 2018: RC Shaw's interview with CBC Cape Breton about his new book, "Louisbourg or Bust"
May 23, 2018: This is a great article about author Janice Landry and her book "The Legacy Letters" written by Mary Campbell of the Cape Breton Spectator.
December 14, 2017: Please listen to "UpTalk" Podcast Episode 17 with Janice Landry
December 13, 2017: Writer Janice Landry sits down with Pat Healey to talk about her new book "The Legacy Letters".
Joan Baxter discusses her book "The Mill" on CTV Atlantic

Winner Announced- Pottersfield Prize CNF 2019

UPCOMING EVENTS

February 29 at 6:30pm: Artist and writer Luigi Costanzo will be at the Italian Canadian Cultural Association of Nova Scotia (2629 Agricola Street, Halifax) for the launch of his book Sculpting Towards the Light. There will be a presentation, a Q & A period, and books for sale.

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Elapultiek

Set in contemporary times, a young Mi’kmaw drum singer and a Euro-Nova Scotian biologist meet at dusk each day to count a population of endangered Chimney Swifts (kaktukopnji’jk). They quickly struggle with their differing views of the world. Through humour and story, the characters must come to terms with their own gifts and challenges as they dedicate efforts to the birds. Each "count night" reveals a deeper complexity of connection to land and history on a personal level.