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mackinnonart.bsky.social
#NovaScotia #NSArts #SaveNSArts #ArtsFunding #NovaScotiaArts #SupportTheArts #NSBudget #DefendNSCulture #HalifaxArts #CanadianArts #ArtsCuts #NSArtsCuts
March 4, 2026 at 1:40 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Will I see you here tomorrow?

Tuesday March 10th at NOON at Province House.
Rally for a New Budget Now (1726 Hollis Street, K’jipuktuk/Halifax).

#NSbudget #NSpoli #NSarts #NewBudgetNow #ShoulderToShoulder
March 9, 2026 at 1:49 PM
poppybalser.bsky.social
My snow drop flowers have broken ground, glad to be free of snow.

I painted this last year when they were in full bloom

“Spring Thaw” 8x10” oil

Available from Teichert Gallery, Halifax.

#BlueSkyMonday
#SignsOfSpring
#nsarts
Oil painting, done from life, of snow drop blossoms in a blue glass pitcher. The pitcher sits on a softly rumpled cloth. The background is soft blue-grey and greys.
March 16, 2026 at 6:28 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: The Genocide Continues (by Karen Stote, @fernpub.bsky.social) & Routine Maintenance (by Marco Melfi, @gaspereaupress.bsky.social). See alt-text. #DSPBposts #NSarts #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky #bookstodon #booktok #booksta #bookstagram #booklovers
Book cover for The Genocide Continues: Population Control and the Sterilization of Indigenous Women by Karen Stote (Fernwood Publishing): The coerced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada is driven by a concern with who occupies land and how resources are distributed. https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/the-genocide-continues Book cover for Routine Maintenance by Marco Melfi (Gaspereau Press): Whether they are drawing portraits (a cobbler, coach, superfan), probing social phenomena (soccer tryout, cell phone ringing in a basilica, tossing leaves at the eco station), or describing the unusual lives of commonplace objects (birthday balloon, faulty porch light, parking stall puddle), Melfi’s poems are propelled by incisive observation, muscular rhythm, and a terse entwining of images and ideas. https://gaspereaupress.com/books/routine-maintenance/
March 23, 2026 at 10:22 AM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: He Who Would Walk the Earth by Griffin Bjerke-Clarke (Roseway) & The City Speaks in Drums by Shauntay Grant, ill. by Susan Tooke (Nimbus Publishing). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #DefendNSbooks #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky #booktok #booksta
Book cover for The City Speaks in Drums by Shauntay Grant, ill. by Susan Tooke (Nimbus Publishing): Available for the first time in paperback, the award-winning The City Speaks in Drums follows two boys from North End Halifax as they explore their neighbourhood and the city beyond, finding music everywhere. At the skate park, by the Public Gardens, down Spring Garden Road, and on the boardwalk, drums and saxophones and dancers and basketballs create the jumbled, joyful, pulsing rhythm of Halifax. Shauntay Grant’s playful spoken word-style poem and Susan Tooke’s vivid illustrations create a wildly energetic and appealing journey through the big, bright city. https://nimbus.ca/store/the-city-speaks-in-drums-pb.html Book cover for He Who Would Walk the Earth by Griffin Bjerke-Clarke (Roseway): Felix walks alone through a decaying world until he is challenged to remember his past and build his future — an anti-colonial western exploring trauma, memory, and healing. https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/he-who-would-walk-the-earth
March 24, 2026 at 10:12 AM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: Astrid, Aghast (by Ian Roy, @gaspereaupress.bsky.social) & Listen! (by @scottneigh.bsky.social, @fernpub.bsky.social). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky #booktok #booksta #bookstagram #booklovers #BooksWorthReading
Book cover for Listen!: Knowing the World and Fighting to Change It by Scott Neigh (Fernwood Publishing): An examination of how listening shapes who we are, weaves the world and grounds our movements for justice and liberation. https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/listen Book cover for Astrid, Aghast by Ian Roy (Gaspereau Press): The stories in Astrid, Aghast are by turns funny, poignant, magical, and humane. Two public-library workers fall in love with each other’s foibles while stuck in an elevator. A young boy stumbles upon a bucket of eels that stirs up family memories he’d rather forget. A solitary entomologist tries to make sense of a life filled with pianos and beetles. Ian Roy takes us on journeys through a world that is like our own, but not quite: a taxi driver falls in love with his car-jacker; an old man claims he can fly—and can, or almost. https://gaspereaupress.com/books/astrid-aghast/
March 22, 2026 at 2:45 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: Lawless (by @marthapaynter.bsky.social, Fernwood Publishing) & Bad Indians Book Club (by Patty Krawec, @gooselane.bsky.social). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky #bookstodon #booktok #booksta #bookstagram #booklovers
Book cover for Lawless: Abortion under Complete Decriminalization by Martha Paynter (Fernwood Publishing): Martha Paynter, nurse and scholar, explains how abortion is governed in Canada without an abortion law and why experts advocate against one. https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/lawless Book cover for Bad Indians Book Club: Reading at the Edge of a Thousand Worlds by Patty Krawec (Goose Lane Editions): Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec doesn’t want to be a “Good Indian.” When a friend asked what books could help them understand Indigenous lives, Patty Krawec gave them a list. This list then exploded into a book club, then into a podcast about a year of Indigenous reading, and then, ultimately, into this book. Drawing on conversations with readers and authors, Bad Indians Book Club delves into writing about history, science, and gender, and into memoirs and fiction, all by “Bad Indians” and those like them, whose refusal of the dominant narrative of the wemitigoozhiwag (European settlers) opens up new possibilities for identity and existence. Introducing each chapter with flash fiction about a shapeshifting Deer Woman, who is on her own journey to decide who she is, Krawec leads us into a place of wisdom and medicine where stories of and by marginalized writers help us imagine a thousand worlds waiting to be born. https://gooselane.com/products/bad-indians-book-club
March 16, 2026 at 11:32 AM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: Non-Prophet (by @quratdar.bsky.social, @gooselane.bsky.social) & The Austens (by @sarahemsley.bsky.social, @pottersfieldpress.bsky.social). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky #bookstodon #booktok #booksta #bookstagram
Book cover for Non-Prophet by Qurat Dar (Goose Lane Editions): Winner of the Claire Harris Poetry Prize. Raw, reverent, and bursting with searing vulnerability, Non-Prophet canvases the electric tension between devotion and doubt to gods both personal and ubiquitous, and reflects on the natural and built worlds in their claims to the sacred. Winner of the inaugural Claire Harris Poetry Prize, Qurat Dar’s bold debut collection explores what it is to grapple with faith that’s “just another language you’re losing, or one you never learned to speak.” Weaving through the boundaries of language and form, Non-Prophet meditates on things “just mundane enough to be holy / just holy enough to be mundane” — the death of a bird, the cries of mid-nightmare prayers, the misplaced shame of what it is to bleed. Dar’s poems both rage and reconcile, holding gently the pieces of a fractured identity. https://gooselane.com/products/non-prophet Book cover for The Austens by Sarah Emsley (Pottersfield Press): With no money of her own and little hope of selling any of her unfinished manuscripts, Jane Austen accepts a marriage proposal from the heir to an estate in her beloved Hampshire, only to break her engagement the following day because she does not love him. She chooses to devote herself to writing fiction, even though she may always have to depend on her parents or brothers for money. When Fanny Palmer falls in love with Jane’s brother Charles Austen, a handsome captain in the Royal Navy, she sees herself as the heroine of a romantic story and chooses to accept his proposal of marriage even though he has very little money. She shares her husband’s desire for children and his confidence that he will soon increase his income by capturing naval prize ships, and she insists on travelling with him when the squadron sails to Nova Scotia, instead of staying at home in Bermuda. Exchanging letters across the Atlantic during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, Jane and Fanny become close friends. Like Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet and Colm Tóibín’s The Master, The Austens explores tensions and rivalries between a great writer and the people closest to them. https://nimbus.ca/store/the-austens.html
March 19, 2026 at 2:52 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: The East Coast Music Book of Fame – Top 50 (by Bob Mersereau, SSP Publications) & What seas sing through our bones (by Karin Cope, @pottersfieldpress.bsky.social). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #DefendNSbooks #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky
Book cover for What seas sing through our bones: Passages through Canada, the United States and Mexico by Karin Cope (Pottersfield Press): What seas sing through our bones is a journey poem and a queer love story co-created and recounted during a time of war, censorship and extreme border control. In a voyage that runs from Nova Scotia to San Diego, then along the Pacific coast of Mexico’s Baja peninsula into the Sea of Cortez, the poem’s narrators relate the marvels and disasters they encounter as they move from one language to another, and between land and sea. https://nimbus.ca/store/what-seas-sing-through-our-bones.html Book cover for The East Coast Music Book of Fame – Top 50 by Bob Mersereau, with a foreword by Joel Plaskett (SSP Publications): This book is a curated collection of 50 of the most prominent musicians, singers, and songwriters from the east coast of Canada who have made it on to a bigger stage. Replete with revealing and humorous anecdotes and rare archival photographs, Bob Mersereau’s book reveals the rich musical legacy of Atlantic Canada and prescribes a musical blueprint for younger musicians to aspire to. Don’t miss out on the stories of Great Big Sea, David Myles, Anne Murray and many more. This book is a must read for music lovers! https://sspub.ca/shop/the-east-coast-music-book-of-fame/
March 26, 2026 at 12:25 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books from #NovaScotia publishers: Beyond the Surface (Wayne Boucher, SSP Publications) & Creating in Dangerous Times (Celeste Nazeli Snowber, HARP). See alt-text. #DSPBposts #NSarts #DefendNSbooks #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky #bookstodon #booktok #booksta #bookstagram #booklovers
Book cover for Creating in Dangerous Times by Celeste Nazeli Snowber (HARP): Creating in Dangerous Times is a universal invitation to reclaim our human birthright of creativity. Each poem serves as a timely incantation—one might even say a ”prescription”—for creative malaise. Designed to stir the memory of our shared humanity, Snowber explores themes of presence and the healing arts, gently nudging us all the while to reawaken, reflect upon, and reconnect with our latent creativity. A beautiful and necessary guide and a deeply empathetic approach to healing and reconciling ourselves, one another, and the planet. https://tryhealingarts.ca/product/creating-in-dangerous-times/ Book cover for Beyond the Surface: The Art of Wayne Boucher by Wayne Boucher (SSP Publications): “The intent of my work has always been for the viewer to ‘fall in and drown in the work’ and see things beyond the surface of the paintings,’” says Boucher. Now the artist’s fans can experience his work in a new book, Beyond The Surface: The Art of Wayne Boucher (Xeno-Optic) https://sspub.ca/shop/beyond-the-surface-soft-cover/
March 30, 2026 at 11:45 AM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: Alan Syliboy: The Journey So Far (Dalhousie Art Gallery & @nimbuspub.bsky.social) & Devotional Forensics (by @josephkidney.bsky.social, @gooselane.bsky.social). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #DefendNSbooks #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky
Book cover for Devotional Forensics by Joseph Kidney (Goose Lane Editions): With dazzling wit and brittle tenderness, multi-award-winning poet Joseph Kidney catches all in his highly anticipated debut collection. Kidney’s rich, innovative imagery finds the durable in the contemporary and articulates a new vision of human vitality from inside a world that always seems on the verge of ending. Channeling influences as wide as Shakespeare and Anne Carson, Virgil and John Ashbery, Devotional Forensics takes full advantage of the liberties of language, playing with its boundaries. This formally inventive collection exalts the ordinary and fleshes out the metaphysical, constructing theologies out of wildfires, classical music, and garbage collection, while engaging seamlessly with everything from renaissance literature to family intimacy, from modern art to biological science. At once timeless and urgent, Kidney’s poems dance through all the miniature apocalypses that compose the evolution of time into history. https://gooselane.com/products/devotional-forensics Book cover for Alan Syliboy: The Journey So Far by Pamela Edmonds, Catherine Anne Martin, Diane Langevin, Michelle Sylliboy, & Catherine Girard (Nimbus Publishing & Dalhousie Art Gallery): The definitive retrospective of the incredible career of one of Mi’kma’ki’s most prolific artists, featuring 70+ colour images as well as essays from curators, art historians, Mi’kmaw artists and scholars. https://nimbus.ca/store/alan-syliboy.html
March 28, 2026 at 1:34 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: New-Fangled Rose (by Sue Sinclair, @gooselane.bsky.social) & I Have a Love Story (by Natalie MacMaster, MacIntyre Purcell). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky #bookstodon #booktok #booksta #bookstagram #booklovers
Book cover for New-Fangled Rose by Sue Sinclair (Goose Lane Editions): Like a rose blooming out of season, the poems in Sue Sinclair’s newest collection are unexpected, unforgettably beautiful, and an unwavering gesture toward the slow emergency of climate crisis. With the lyrical brilliance and keen eye trained on beauty that’s characteristic of Sinclair, New-Fangled Rose reaches toward the light with reverent hands, photosynthesizing it into poems that are deft, musical, and unquestionably alive. These poems cast a wide gaze over a fragile world, offering vibrant elegies to luna moths and crab apples, fireflies and trilliums. They examine what it is to build relationships in a world that feels increasingly precarious, like at any moment, something may end; like at any moment, something may begin. https://gooselane.com/products/new-fangled-rose Book cover for I Have a Love Story by Natalie MacMaster (MacIntyre Purcell Publishing): Natalie MacMaster has captivated audiences for decades with her masterful Celtic fiddling and electrifying performances. Winner of many music awards, Grammy nominee, and recipient of the Order of Canada, she has collaborated with a host of musical legends including the Boston Pops, The Chieftains, Alison Krauss, and Yo-Yo Ma. In I Have a Love Story, Natalie shares the remarkable journey from her humble roots on Cape Breton Island to the world’s most renowned stages. Brimming with heartfelt reflections on family, faith, culture, and music, I Have a Love Story is an uplifting memoir that inspires readers to cherish and nurture the love in their own lives. https://www.macintyrepurcell.com/product/i-have-a-love-story/
March 18, 2026 at 12:48 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books: Human Story will not Consume the Cosmos (by Alexander Hollenberg, @gaspereaupress.bsky.social) & Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters (by Lilian Marshall, Murdena Marshall & Prune Harris, @nimbuspub.bsky.social). See alt-text. #DSPBposts 💙📚 #NSarts #BookSky #bookstagram
Book cover for Human Story will not Consume the Cosmos by Alexander Hollenberg (Gaspereau Press): Hollenberg explores the way in which poetry straddles the divide between the meaning-making impulse of the constructed human world and the wilder, wily resistance of the seemingly vulnerable non-human world. Plainspoken, alert, Hollenberg’s poems work recursively, repurposing words, images and motifs in new contexts in order to celebrate the richness and risks of storytelling. https://gaspereaupress.com/books/human-story-will-not-consume-the-cosmos/ Book cover for Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters by Lilian Marshall, Murdena Marshall, and Prune Harris (Nimbus Publishing): The story of Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters is a very old Mi’kmaw legend. It happens in the North Sky as the stars that show the story of Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters move around Tatapn, the North Star. In pictures in this book you can see how these stars, shown as they appear two hours before dawn, move through the night sky. They are in a different position each of the seasons because they are the time-keepers, the calendar. All through the year, as the stars and plants travel through the sky, the Mi’kmaq watch the story of Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters as it unfolds before their eyes. https://nimbus.ca/store/muin-and-the-seven-bird-hunters.html
March 20, 2026 at 8:02 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books, from #NovaScotia publishers: Cures for Hunger (by @denibechard.bsky.social, @gooselane.bsky.social) & On Hammet Shore (by Shelagh Meagher, Askance Publishing). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky #bookstodon #booktok #booksta #bookstagram #booklovers
Book cover for On Hammet Shore by Shelagh Meagher (Askance Publishing): Henry has loved Sybil, one way and another, for nearly as long as he’s loved Little Hammet, the place where they first met, his birthplace, the shore which forever draws him back. The island and the woman are the twin stars which, for better or for worse, have steered his life. But that life now has an end in sight. Not some messy, pain-racked end such as his sister suffered, not something to require his brother to clean up, but a graceful, carefully arranged cessation of life. An end of his own choosing at a time of his own choosing. But before that, there’s a life to be made sense of, arrangements must be made, plans to be be acted upon. https://askancepublishing.wordpress.com/on-hammet-shore/ Book cover for Cures for Hunger by Deni Ellis Béchard (Goose Lane Editions): Growing up in rural British Columbia, Deni Béchard worships his father, believing that he can do no wrong. Although his charismatic father is prone to racing trains and brawling, Deni has no idea how unusual his family is. But when Deni discovers his father's true identity (and his other life as a bank robber), his imagination is set on fire. Before long, he begins to see himself as a character in one of his father's stories. He can't escape the sense that his father's life holds the key to understanding his own passions, aversions, and motivations. At once an extraordinary family story and an unconventional portrait of the artist as a young man, Cures for Hunger is a singular, deeply affecting memoir by an acclaimed writer. Almost unbelievable. You'll swear it's fiction. https://gooselane.com/products/cures-for-hunger
March 15, 2026 at 2:16 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books from #NovaScotia publishers: John Winslow at Grand-Pré (by Jonathan Fowler @coldh20.bsky.social & Earle Lockerby, @gaspereaupress.bsky.social) & Slice the Water (by PP Wong, @gooselane.bsky.social). See alt-text. #DSPBposts #NSarts #DefendNSbooks #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky
Book cover for John Winslow at Grand-Pré: Diaries of the Acadian Deportations, Volume Two transcribed and annotated by Jonathan Fowler and Earle Lockerby (Gaspereau Press): John Winslow was one of the most significant American military leaders of the generations before George Washington. Winslow’s career carried him to the corners of the Atlantic world, soldiers flocked to his banner, and his exploits were celebrated in song. But instead of creating a country, he destroyed one. Following the successful siege of the French Fort Beauséjour at Chignecto in 1755, Nova Scotia Governor Charles Lawrence ordered Winslow to deport Acadian families from their settlements in the middle of the province. Winslow found these instructions both surprising and disturbing, but he followed them, recording his actions in his journal. The 1755 deportations of the Acadians forever altered the social and political landscape of Atlantic Canada and contributed to the unique character of the Acadian and Cajun communities that developed in their aftermath. In John Winslow at Grand-Pré Jonathan Fowler and Earle Lockerby have faithfully transcribed and extensively annotated Winslow’s eye-witness account of this seminal event of 18th-century North American history. Supported by maps, illustrations, and extensive contextualizing essays and appendices, this new presentation of Winslow’s 1755 journal provides an invaluable window on those troubled times. https://gaspereaupress.com/books/john-winslow-at-grand-pre/ Book cover by Slice the Water by PP Wong (Goose Lane Editions): Longlisted, Canada Reads. Born on the lush island nation of Mahana, Fred lives under the tyrannical rule of a book-burning king. Under the king’s rule, Mahanians are controlled by a military dictatorship and threatened with forced starvation, while people with disabilities are exiled. After Fred’s father suddenly disappears, Fred joins an underground movement of dissenters and becomes an unwitting global icon in the fight for Mahanian freedom. When he is recruited and relocated by an organization that appears sympathetic to Fred’s cause, he arrives in a seemingly peaceful foreign nation, where the impact of social media and technology creates a new, stranger struggle. A dystopian thriller, a work of speculative fiction, and a coming-of-age story, Wong’s novel thrums with biting bursts of staccato-like prose — a fitting accompaniment to a fascinating exploration of contrasting political systems. As Fred unpeels layers of truth and sees beyond the optics of altruism and the illusion of choice, Slice the Water unpacks the myriad amplifying impacts of technology, addiction, and complacency. https://gooselane.com/products/slice-the-water
March 29, 2026 at 2:38 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: This Big Heart (by Lindsay Ruck, ill. by Bria Miller, Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute) & The Perfect Day and Other Stories (by Harry Bruce, @pottersfieldpress.bsky.social). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky
Book cover for This Big Heart by Lindsay Ruck, ill. by Bria Miller (Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute): Dealing with the many emotions that come with grief isn’t always easy. This rhyming picture book reminds us that we feel so much because we love so much. https://dbdli.ca/resource-materials/this-big-heart/ Book cover for The Perfect Day and Other Stories by Harry Bruce (Pottersfield Press): Bruce’s writing has inspired critics to call him no less than “a consummate storyteller”; to marvel over his “magnetic style and marvelous command of the language”; to declare his prose “highly entertaining and gloriously informative”; and to insist that “only the spiritually dead or terminally obtuse could fail to come away from it richer for the experience.” And now, The Perfect Day and Other Stories offers the best of Bruce’s best essays. From the sweet pain of first love and leaving home to the horrors of killer wasps, bloodthirsty flies, and marauding mice, from the relief experienced in every outhouse in the pines to the joy resounding from neighbourhood curling on a Scottish laird’s frozen pond, from the magic mist that sneaks into a ghost village on an abandoned island off Lunenburg to the sheer glory that parades of tall ships grant to great ports around the world, from fogs, bats, cats, and coyotes to the whales, thrones, stags, and steeples that make Atlantic Canada unique…they’re all here, and more, in Harry’s latest collection. https://nimbus.ca/store/the-perfect-day-and-other-stories.html
March 13, 2026 at 8:10 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: Closing Act (by @chriswkim.bsky.social, @conundrumpress.bsky.social) & Interstitial (by @leesadean.bsky.social, @gaspereaupress.bsky.social). See alt-text. #DSPBposts #NSarts #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky #booktok #booksta #bookstagram #booklovers
Book cover for Closing Act by Chris W. Kim (Conundrum Press): Lea walks her usual route through the city when a young man steals her bag. She chases him into an alley but quickly loses her bearings—each alley leads into yet another alley, the sounds of the city fade away, and the thief is nowhere to be seen. Hopelessly searching for an exit, she eventually encounters Dee, one of the alleyfolk who obsessively makes maps of his surroundings and is convinced that the alleys have been gradually narrowing over time. The more of these alleyfolk Lea gets to know, the more she sees that they agree: the labyrinth they inhabit is shifting, creating a state of deep uncertainty. When the presence of the thief becomes a subject of contention, Lea finds herself entangled in the affairs of a world fated to end soon. https://conundrumpress.com/product/closing-act/ Book cover for Interstitial by Leesa Dean (Gaspereau Press): The poems in Interstitial probe the porous nature of existence, examining the ways in which the world, the body, and the self are all liminal spaces. Writing in the interstitial time between the deaths of her parents, and using an array of forms and registers, Leesa Dean turns a clear eye on the difficulties of family secrets, grief that is solitary and grief that is shared, lost languages, and violence, recovery, and resilience. These poems move from injury to reconciliation, demonstrating that we are strongest when we allow our shared narratives to weave us into a greater constellation than our individual lives afford. https://gaspereaupress.com/books/interstitial/
March 21, 2026 at 3:13 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: You Are Loved by Tom Urbaniak, ill. by Tammy Krasniqi (Breton Books) & Quiet Crossings (by @vividoodles.bsky.social w/ colourist @skyjanquest.bsky.social, @conundrumpress.bsky.social). See alt-text. #DSPBposts #NSarts #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky
Book cover for You Are Loved by Tom Urbaniak, ill. by Tammy Krasniqi (Breton Books): Destined to become a treasured heirloom for the many families who will cherish its messages, You Are Loved is devoted to the legacy of love and service of Rev. Alison Etter, and to her vital roles as a mother, spouse, friend to many, community leader, and champion of a better world. With remarkable simplicity, Prof. Tom Urbaniak has laid out a prescription for making the world a better place. In simple sentences—freighted with meaning—he conveys the multiple avenues by which his late wife, Alison, conveyed her wealth of love to the world. Told in English, French, Gaelic, and Polish. https://nimbus.ca/store/you-are-loved.html Book cover for Quiet Crossings by Vivi Partridge ‪(Conundrum Press): After crashing her car in the unfamiliar countryside, Selena agrees to help out at the nearby Inn in exchange for a room. Located on the edge of the world, the Inn attracts extraordinary customers from near and far. The most popular attraction is the complimentary ferry ride to the Great Unknown, a mysterious shore past the edge of the world. But when no one ever travels back, Selena begins to feel uneasy. https://conundrumpress.com/product/quiet-crossings/
March 12, 2026 at 12:18 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: Immortal Air (by Tracey Rombough, Cape Breton University Press) & Every Leaf on Every Tree (by Lauren Soloy, @nimbuspub.bsky.social). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #bookish 💙📚 #BookSky #booktok #booksta #bookstagram #booklovers
Book cover for Immortal Air by Tracey Rombough (Cape Breton University Press): Bright and promising as a student, George Cameron was sent to live with his sister in Boston while he attended a prestigious Latin school and later the Boston School of Law. It was what his mother wanted for him and his brother, Charley. It was what any well-bred family would want for an intelligent son destined for greater things than his humble New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, upbringing. On his journey to find his voice among the great poets of the 19th century, George had to leave behind his first love, a muse who haunted his thoughts and fuelled his passion for poetry throughout his life. https://nimbus.ca/store/immortal-air.html Book cover for Every Leaf on Every Tree by Lauren Soloy (Nimbus Publishing): A tender and playful baby board book bursting with declarations of love from the bestselling author/illustrator of The Hidden World of Gnomes. https://nimbus.ca/store/every-leaf-on-every-tree.html
March 14, 2026 at 3:17 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books from NS publishers: Here Babies, There Babies in Summer (by Nancy Cohen, ill. by @carmenmok.bsky.social, @nimbuspub.bsky.social) & The Short Years (by @amccreesh.bsky.social, @conundrumpress.bsky.social). See alt-text.

#DSPBposts #NSarts #DefendNSbooks 💙📚 #BookSky
Book cover for The Short Years by Alison McCreesh (Conundrum Press): McCreesh turns her uncompromising lens to the domestic everyday work of parenting three small children. Combining gag humour and individually moving comics McCreesh gives an insiders perspective over seven years. There’s a fair amount of talk about death, as well as love and music and art, there’s heartbreak about family friends moving away, there’s some talk of gender, and there are plenty of those general existential questions that kids ponder so well. More than that though, there’s something deeper that comes from these comics spanning so many years. The kids are simultaneously changing AND remaining themselves, as their personalities develop and become more defined. https://conundrumpress.com/product/the-short-years/ Book cover for Here Babies, There Babies in Summer by Nancy Cohen, ill. by Carmen Mok (Nimbus Publishing): This delightful board book for babies follows baby on a typical summertime day. https://nimbus.ca/store/here-babies-there-babies-in-summer.html
March 27, 2026 at 1:20 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: Fever Dream (by @dmcfadzean.bsky.social, @conundrumpress.bsky.social) & Na Trì Mucan Beaga (by Seumas R. MacDhòmhnaill / James R. MacDonald, @bradanpress.bsky.social). See alt-text.

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Book cover for Na Trì Mucan Beaga by Seumas R. MacDhòmhnaill / James R. MacDonald (Bradan Press): Once there were three little pigs who left their mama to build new houses of their own. The first little pig built a house with straw, and the second little pig built a house with gorse twigs, but the Big Bad Wolf blew them down and ate up the little pigs! The third little pig built a house with bricks, and the Big Bad Wolf couldn’t blow it down. So he started playing tricks on the third little pig in order to catch him and eat him—but the pig was just as cunning as the wolf! Who will emerge victorious, and who will be eaten? https://www.bradanpress.com/books/childrens/na-tri-mucan-beaga/ Book cover for Fever Dream by D. McFadzean (Conundrum Press): Fever Dream is about parents caring for a sick child. It’s partly a visual exploration of the experience and sensations of a fever dream, and partly an expression of the kind of heightened anxiety caregivers feel, particularly since the pandemic began. The ever-present background fears about health care, institutional erosion, and the uncertain future are intersected with the immediacy of the screaming, spiralling nightmare of the child. https://conundrumpress.com/product/fever-dream/
March 25, 2026 at 11:20 AM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books: Today, from #NovaScotia publishers: Bluenose Adventure by Jacqueline Halsey, ill. by Eric Orchard (Formac Publishing) & The Plot to Kill the Premier by Jeremy Akerman (at @moosehousepress.bsky.social). See alt-text.

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Book cover for Bluenose Adventure by Jacqueline Halsey, ill. by Eric Orchard (Formac Publishing): Share in the adventure and excitement of a young boy's life aboard a working ship, the Bluenose on the Grand Banks. Here's a true-to-life adventure story. Arty is a 10-year-old boy who gets the chance of a lifetime -- he's hired to go on the maiden voyage of the famous schooner Bluenose in 1921. Young readers will delight in joining along with Arty as he learns his way around the ship amidst the dangers, excitement and intrigue of working on a fishing schooner. When Arty climbs to the top of a mast and spots another ship heading toward Bluenose on a collision course, even the captain is grateful for his help. Once he's back in Bluenose's home port of Lunenburg, Arty has a real adventure to share with his family and friends. In this story, based on the real experiences of young boys who worked on board Bluenose in the 1920s, Jacqueline Halsey has created a book that celebrates the story of the ship and her famous captain Angus Walters. https://formac.ca/product/bluenose-adventure/ Book cover for The Plot to Kill the Premier by Jeremy Akerman (Moose House Publications): Amateur sleuth Marc LeBlanc is pulled into a complex case when his friend, the Premier of Nova Scotia, starts receiving death threats. Marc's challenge is to help locate the source of the threats. Is the danger from within the Premier's closest circle? The third Marc LeBlanc Mystery. https://www.moosehousepress.com/product-page/the-plot-to-kill-the-premier
March 7, 2026 at 1:03 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books from #NovaScotia publishers: The Spirit of Scatarie (by Lesley Crewe, @nimbuspub.bsky.social) & Winning Prizes (by David Adams Richards, @pottersfieldpress.bsky.social). See alt-text.

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Book cover for The Spirit of Scatarie by Lesley Crewe (Nimbus Publishing): A stunning new work of historical fiction from the bestselling author of The Spoon Stealer, set on Nova Scotia’s remote Scatarie Island, following three friends whose lives are inextricably bound, and the spirit who guides them. https://nimbus.ca/store/the-spirit-of-scatarie.html Book cover for Winning Prizes: Essays by David Adams Richards (Pottersfield Press): Winning Prizes is a collection of essays dealing with topics ranging from faith, murder, love of place as well as historical and literary individuals. He writes passionately about individuality and the courage it takes to strike out on one’s own and to stand one’s ground against the odds, a critical part of living that sooner or later all of us must deal with in our own way. https://nimbus.ca/store/winning-prizes.html
March 9, 2026 at 12:26 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books: Today, from #NovaScotia publishers: William D. Roach: Folk Artist (by William Roach, Cape Breton University Press) & Signs of Life (by @sarahkcox.bsky.social, @gooselane.bsky.social). See alt-text.

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Book cover for William D. Roach: Folk Artist by William Roach (Cape Breton University Press): William Roach’s interest – training, if you like – in carving and shaping wood into representations of the world around him, came naturally. When they weren’t making or repairing practical articles and tools, the older men in his life spent countless hours whittling curiosities that delighted children, neighbours and friends.After years working in Ontario, Roach and his family moved home to his Acadian birthplace, Chéticamp, Cape Breton, striving for the stability of family and community. A new life, turning a new leaf, William began expressing himself through his gift – a diversion at first, his passion for creating objects of beauty and value became an obsession and later a business.From his Sunset Gallery and studio on the outskirts of Chéticamp, Roach works tirelessly at his entertaining creations. https://nimbus.ca/store/william-roach-folk-artist.html Book cover for Signs of Life: Field Notes from the Frontlines of Extinction by Sarah Cox (Goose Lane Editions): What’s to be done when only three spotted owls are left in Canada’s wild? When wolves eat endangered caribou, cormorants kill rare trees, and housing developments threaten a tiny frog? Environmental journalist Sarah Cox has witnessed what happens when we drive species to the brink of extinction. In Signs of Life, she tags along with the Canadian military, Indigenous guardians, biologists, conservationists, and ordinary people who are racing to save hundreds of species before it’s too late. Travelling across the country, Cox visits the Toronto Zoo, home of Canada’s only wildlife biobank, where scientists conserve living cells from endangered species in the event of future loss; tours Canada’s military bases, home to some of Canada’s last preserved ecosystems; and travels to Indigenous communities where land stewards are striving to restore the delicate ecological balance that has sustained people for millennia. Through the eyes and work of individuals who are bringing species back from the precipice, Cox delivers both an urgent message and a fresh perspective on how we can protect biodiversity and begin to turn things around. Winner, Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society Book Awards for BC Authors (Non-Fiction). https://gooselane.com/products/signs-of-life
March 8, 2026 at 3:21 PM
joannemerriam.bsky.social
Daily(ish) #SmallPress #books - from #NovaScotia publishers: Hopeless (by Lesley Choyce, @moosehousepress.bsky.social) & piyyut (by Solomon Nagler, drawings by Angela Henderson, Nevermore Press). See alt-text.

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Book cover for Hopeless by Lesley Choyce (Moose House Publications): Nicolas is headstrong, wayward teen, flailing through school with no plans for a life. His now-departed father called him 'Hopeless', and the nickname stuck. How can you make it through anything wearing a tag like that? It turns out, having a fearless older brother, Garrett, can help...until Garrett makes an unexpected friend and sort of disappears from the family. Nicholas finds a surprise in that friend of Garrett's, and gets an unexpected assignment from a teacher that may yet save his high-school career. But add in near-death experiences, cross-country journeys and reunions that are far from joyful, and why would anyone hope to be hopeful? https://www.moosehousepress.com/product-page/hopeless Book cover for piyyut by Solomon Nagler, drawings by Angela Henderson (Nevermore Press): piyyut is a long-form poem assembling fables from the Jewish Diaspora in an attempt to unsettle refugee migration stories while exhuming mystical, prophetic voices in post-Holocaust Europe. Verses are titled and informed by the aleph-bet and examine the entanglements of the diasporic experience through allegorical tales and critical Jewish settler confessionals. Each verse is paired with a drawing by visual artist Angela Henderson exploring the intersections between graphic notation and lyrical, poetic form. Combining and juxtaposing digitally- and hand-rendered elements, the hybridized landscapes both respond to and reflect the complex, speculative and sometimes brutalist journey through past and present. https://www.nevermorepress.ca/books/p/piyyut
March 10, 2026 at 1:08 PM