Aubade edited by E. Alex Pierce

ISBN: 978-1-926448-26-8

206 pages

Poetry and Prose from Nova Scotia writers 

$19.95

A singular anthology featuring the work of Nova Scotia poets and writers inspired by the aubade: originally a medieval dawn song expressing the regret of lovers parting at daybreak, the aubade is a poem type that has no fixed metrical form, thus allowing prose writers to adopt its elements—daybreak, parting, a watchman, a window, self-realization, loss and reconciliation—and re-form them into new expression. Through lyric and prose poetry, drama, short story, non-fiction and essay, Nova Scotia writers re-envision, in the words of Mi’kmaw poet shalan joudry, “the return of the Wabana’ki light”.
From Carol Bruneau’s lovers lost in confusion over “ship’s time” and Alexander MacLeod’s pair keeping watch in pre-dawn light at their baby’s hospital room, to Basma Kavanagh’s meditation on the “hour of first sight”, these bold writers have expanded and redefined this archetypal lyric.

E. Alex Pierce is the author of Vox Humana, published by Brick Books (2011), and of To float, to drown, to close up, to open – forthcoming from University of Alberta Press in Spring, 2019. Her work has been widely anthologized, notably in The Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope, 2008), and published in literary journals in Canada and the US. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, NC, and for ten years taught creative writing (playwriting, poetry and poetics) at Cape Breton University. She is Senior Editor at Boularderie Island Press.

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The Night Life of Chairs by Charlotte Musial

$19.95

ISBN: 978-1-926448-23-7

Available: October 2017

In The Night Life of Chairs we meet poet Charlotte Musial, who grew up, in today’s parlance, as a ‘free-range’ kid—denizen of woods and fields, blueberry barrens and cranberry bogs, beaches, bays, and shores. Her childhood environs and experiences primed her for the Romantic Poets in high school, inspired her then, and continue to inform her adult writing life now. Readers will find echoes of their own childhoods in some of these pages and of a later maturity in others. The Night Life of Chairs is an intimate and honest collection of poetry where the author invites the reader to explore her seasons, her landscapes, her heart.

Charlotte Musial was born in Scotchtown, Cape Breton. She graduated St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing with an RN diploma, and for many years she practised  as a member of the Registered Nurses Association of Nova Scotia. Later, she graduated CBU with a BA and taught essay writing, grammar, and comprehension at that institution. Charlotte’s personal essays, features, short fiction, and poetry have found homes in local, regional, and national venues. These include The Cape Bretoner, The Atlantic Advocate, Pottersfield Portfolio, Canadian Writers Journal, and, more recently, as short fiction in anthologies published by The Nashwaak Review (St. Thomas University Press), Thirteen Ways from Sunday (Boularderie Island Press), and Grey Area: 13 Ghost Stories (Third Person Press), and Breton Books.

Boularderie Island Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support of ArtsNS in the publication of this title.

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Banjo Flats by Mona Knight

ISBN: 978-1-926448-22-0

Boularderie Island Press

 $19.95

She’s called Fortune, orphaned at the age of thirteen and disguised as a boy in order to survive and fit in with the other drifters and dusters. Her mother taught her to read and write. Her father taught her to handle guns. She’s nobody’s fool and a crack shot, which lands her in a heap of trouble after killing one of the territory’s most notorious and crazed gunfighters on the day she arrives in  Banjo Flats – Territory of Dakota — the most lawless town in the Wild West. It’s a place where frontier justice is mostly settled with the barrel of a rifle. Fortune didn’t come to Banjo Flats looking for trouble but it found her anyway. There’s a price on her head. Every outlaw with a gun is headed to Banjo Flats thinking they can earn some easy money by killing the girl gunslinger. They’re wrong.

Mona Knight was raised on a sunny sheep farm in central Ontario where she developed a passion for western paperbacks and movies. She spent many years as a correspondent with a third-world sponsorship agency. In retirement she became a valued contributor for a Cape Breton newspaper, The Victoria Standard, attracting a devoted group of readers of her bi-weekly articles. She has published several short fiction stories. One of her works was a finalist in the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia’s annual writing competition and became the opening chapter of Banjo Flats.

Boularderie Island Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support of ArtsNS in the publication of this title.

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Beaches of Cape Breton by Pat O’Neil

ISBN: 978-1-926448-16-9

No matter where you go in Cape Breton, you’re never very far from a beach. Stretching along the shores of countless bays and harbours, beaches of all descriptions and personalities abound — created and shaped over time by wind, waves and tides, no two exactly alike. Beaches of Cape Breton is an open invitation to everyone who craves a getaway from the hubbub of daily life — a place where sun sparkles off blue-green water and the warmth of the sand melts away troubles, if only for a few hours. You may choose to stretch out on the glorious sand dunes of Aspy Bay, stroll the cobbled coastlines of Framboise, or spend a family day in a secluded inlet on the Bras d’Or. Whatever your preference, Beaches of Cape Breton will be your personal guide to these very special places. In an informative and user-friendly format, this book will tell you exactly where to find these beaches and what to expect when you get there. You will learn important details such as beach access, on-site amenities, lifeguard services, environmental concerns, and much more. And as an added bonus, scanable codes will connect you with current weather conditions, tides, maps, and a wide range of other relevant information.

Whether you love to swim, stroll, build sandcastles, boogie board, commune with nature or just chill — in Cape Breton THERE’S A BEACH FOR THAT!

Pat O’Neil has an extensive background as a writer, editor and publisher. She has written two Cape Breton travel guides, two hiking books, and Aqua: Waterways of Cape Breton, her most recent work, published by Boularderie Island Press in 2016.

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Mezcalero by T.E. Wilson

ISBN: 978-1-926448-20-6

278 pages

Crime fiction  $19.95

Long before he became a private detective, Ernesto Sánchez and his family fled Mexico City to escape the family business — moving cocaine for the cartels. As a teenager he adapted well to his new home in Canada. But adulthood brought some changes. Like shedding his birth gender and the name Cristina to become a tough cop with a five-o’clock shadow. Now Ernesto’s back in Mexico City, accepting cases from the comfort of his velvet settee in a dumpy apartment. At the urging of his mother, he agrees to find a young Canadian woman who has gone missing on Mexico’s crime-ridden Pacific Coast. Driven by a compulsion to address injustice, and a mounting panic that his life is in danger, Sánchez encounters cops on the take, shady gringos, a hungry alligator — and a dog named Bill Clinton. Mezcalero is the first book in the Detective Sánchez chronicles. Rich in detail, this is an absorbing tale that shines light into the dark corners of Mexico’s pervasive and devastating world of organized crime.

T.E. Wilson’s work as a journalist and human rights observer in Latin America has taken him from post-conflict Guatemala to the mountains of the Sierra Madre and the depths of Mexico’s prison system. He attended McGill University, where he shared the Shapiro Award for creative writing. For his non-fiction writing he has received a CBC Canadian Literary Award (first) and a National Magazine Award (gold). Born in Montreal, Wilson resides in Peterborough, Ontario.

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