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When the first puck dropped in the Professional Women’s Hockey League in January 2024, it had been a long time coming. Women have been playing hockey since at least 1890 and playing professionally for decades. But until 2024, even the highest-level female players had never been compensated as professionals: some paid for their own gear and worked second jobs, earning a pittance, if anything, from their chosen profession.
In Breakaway, Karissa Donkin tells the story of the players’ efforts to create the PWHL, long before the first full season in 2024. Following the unnamed 2024 Montreal PWHL team, with some of the best players in the sport, like Marie-Philip Poulin and Erin Ambrose, Donkin takes readers through the League’s founding, the draft process, the practices, and the dramatic arc of the first season. Defying all expectations, with larger crowds and higher revenues than anticipated, this first season was a gamechanger for professional women’s sports leagues.
Every day desperate people at the mercy of smugglers flee conflict zones, crossing the Mediterranean in rickety boats in the hopes of using Greece as the conduit to a better life elsewhere. Thousands perish in the attempt. Those who survive face yet more challenges, for the Greeks themselves, in an economic crisis worse than any in living memory, have neither the resources nor the will to play host to the constant influx of refugees. In The Brink of Freedom we see how worlds collide when a young boy goes missing from a refugee camp in Athens. He is found with a Canadian woman, but the police also apprehend a Gypsy from Ukraine on suspicion of human trafficking. When everyone is desperate, none of the rules of civilized society apply.
Broke City, the final book in Wendy McGrath’s Santa Rosa trilogy, follows young Christine as she edges into self-awareness in the now-vanished Edmonton neighbourhood of Santa Rosa.
Budding with creativity that her working-class parents do not understand, Christine questions her parents’ fraught relationship, with alcoholism and implicit violence bubbling just under the surface of their marriage. Her insight turns beyond her family to her neighbourhood, nicknamed Packingtown, a community built on meat-packing plants and abattoirs, on death.
Written with tight lyricism, Broke City is a brimming working-class gothic novel that reveals Christine’s deepening knowledge of the adult world around her and of her own complicated place in that world.
Broken Fiction is a collection of short autofictional stories and poems that both offer solace and depict anguish at the collision of memory, loss, and grief. This kind of story-making negotiates a recognition and acceptance of hard truths without resorting to easy resolution.
The pieces in this volume are playful and fierce. The narrator’s willingness to give attention to where love works or goes wrong, or to the moments when suffering cannot be veiled by a positive attitudeeven as the comic or absurd overwhelms the tragic and humiliatingtakes us to places that inhabit both memory and fiction. Photographs break the fiction and pull the reader into the inevitable forces of time and loss and death.
Broken Fiction invites readers to consider a way throughand sometimes aroundillness and love, pain and joy, and gives a droplet of hope in nature’s comedy of errors and coincidence.
A deeply scouring poetic account of the residential school experience, and a deeply important indictment of colonialism in Canada.
Many of the poems in Louise Halfe’s Burning in This Midnight Dream were written in response to the grim tide of emotions, memories, dreams and nightmares that arose in her as the Truth and Reconciliation process unfolded. In heart-wrenching detail, Halfe recalls the damage done to her parents, her family, herself. With fearlessly wrought verse, Halfe describes how the experience of the residential schools continues to haunt those who survive, and how the effects pass like a virus from one generation to the next. She asks us to consider the damage done to children taken from their families, to families mourning their children; damage done to entire communities and to ancient cultures.
Halfe’s poetic voice soars in this incredibly moving collection as she digs deep to discover the root of her pain. Her images, created from the natural world, reveal the spiritual strength of her culture.
Originally published in 2016 by Coteau Books, Burning in This Midnight Dream won the Indigenous Peoples’ Publishing Award, the Rasmussen, Ramussen & Charowsky Indigenous Peoples’ Writing Award, the Saskatchewan Arts Board Poetry Award, the League of Canadian Poets’ Raymond Souster Award, and the High Plains Book Award for Indigenous Writers. It was also the 2017 WILLA Literacy Award Finalist in Poetry. This new edition includes a new Afterword by Halfe.
From Allyson McOuat, author of the popular 2020 New York Times Modern Love essay “The Ghost Was the Least of Our Problems,” comes her debut essay collection
In a series of intimate and humorous dispatches, McOuat examines her identity as a queer woman, and as a mother, through the lens of the pop culture moments in the ’80s and ’90s that molded her identity. McOuat stirs the ingredients required to conjure an unsettled spirit: the horrors of pregnancy and motherhood, love and loss, the supernatural, kaleidoscopic sexuality, near-miss experiences, and the unexplained moments in life that leave you haunted.
Through her own life experiences, various tall tales, urban legends, analysis of horror and thriller films, and spine-chilling true crime incidents, McOuat uncovers how cultural gatekeeping has forced her, as a mother and queer femme woman, to persistently question her own reality. Through this charming and humorous exploration of what moments have made her who she is, McOuat demonstrates for readers a way through by forgiving herself and exorcising her stubborn attachment to a phantom, heteronormative, nuclear family structure.
This raw and intimate memoir takes us inside the mind of a father who embarked on a ten-month journey through rugged and remote terrain in British Columbia in search of his missing son.
After setting out on a hike on Frosty Mountain on October 10, 2020, twenty-five-year-old Jordan Naterer disappeared. By the time authorities were alerted and the search was underway, the season’s first snow storm arrived at higher elevations, concealing the route he had taken. This memoir follows Jordan’s father, Greg, as he navigates grief, time, and the mountain wilderness of British Columbia in search of his missing son.
From learning the scope of the logistics involved in a large-scale search-and-rescue effort to experiencing the range of emotions of a determined father and family on a near-impossible quest, the reader will not only follow Greg’s 1,600 km journey on- and off-trail in Manning Park, but will also meet Tmxwulaxw—also called Mother Earth—who guided Naterer throughout.
When Tarah Schwartz miscarried for the first time at almost 5 months, it was devastating. Determined to try again, more miscarriages would follow, threatening her stability and her relationships, and changing her profoundly. In this memoir, Tarah puts words to excruciating loss as she recounts her unexpected and deeply inspiring journey to motherhood.
As a long time news reporter, she spent years working in front of a television camera, telling stories that reflected the power of the human spirit to survive. This time she tells her own.
In this utterly charming picture book, Lori Doody tells the story of Kate, a little girl very eager for the fun of summer to begin, but whose plans for bonfires and picnics are squelched by relentless rain, drizzle, and fog. In simple language and with bright, playful illustrations, Doody captures perfectly the achingly long pause that Newfoundlanders know so well as they await the capelin (small food fish) whose arrival is said to signal the return of summer and good weather to the island’s shores.
Young listeners will have fun finding capelin, or the creatures that eat them, hidden in some of the illustrations. Capelin Weather is an engaging introduction to Newfoundland for other young readers?with whales, icebergs, and those beautiful silvery capelin that cause such a stir when they arrive on the beaches.A wonderful celebration of Newfoundland weather, for those who live under it and for those who live away. This book will be an instant hit for Newfoundlanders at home and abroad and will resonate with any reader who knows what it’s like to long for summer’s warmth.
In April of 1895, a Nova Scotian by the name of Joshua Slocum set sail from Boston with the goal of circumnavigating the globe by himself. Three years and 46,000 miles later, he would publish the story of his journey, Sailing Alone Around the World, an instant classic that has since never been out of print. A decade later, in 1909, Slocum set sail for the Amazon and was never seen again.
More than a century later another Nova Scotian adventurer, RC Shaw, leaves his home in Cow Bay on a bicycle bound for Slocum’s childhood home of Brier Island. Travelling down Nova Scotia’s South Shore, Shaw sets off on a journey to chase the ghost of Joshua Slocum, casting aside reason and attempting his own miraculous sea crossing.
Rollicking, refreshing, and undeniably adventurous, Captain Solitude is one man’s story of whimsical spirit-rousing, saltwater transcendence, and the discovery of the hidden layers and characters of Nova Scotia’s coastal crown.
A shot of encouragement, a kick in the ass, and a loving push for young people who have no idea what they want or how to get it
Career Rookie is a book for every grad, student, and 20-something who feels lost, overwhelmed, and anxious. It tackles the emotional and logistical WTF-ness of starting your career, answering questions like, What if I don’t have any experience? What if I went to school for something I hated? What if I have NO IDEA what I actually want? Should I just suck it up and settle? Because, honestly, this career thing is starting to give me an ulcer.
This fresh, fun guide gives even the most lost and overwhelmed a way forward. It explores passion, curiosity, uncertainty, self-sabotage, and more on the quest to shake off post-graduation paralysis. Finding the right career can seem impossible, but Sarah Vermunt is the fun-loving, straight-talking coach we all need to make feel-good work a reality.
Rousing, bullsh*t-free advice for aspiring career changers
What is a careergasm? Does it feel as good as it sounds?
You bet your ass it does. A Careergasm happens when your work feels good. Really good. Like a groovin’ Marvin Gaye song. Like you and your work belong together, and you can’t help coming back for more.
But how do you get your mojo back when you’re in a passionless relationship with your job? In Careergasm, Sarah Vermunt leads the way. This playful, empowering book for wannabe career changers is a rally cry, a shot of courage, and a road map charting the course to meaningful work. Filled with real stories about brave people making great stuff happen, this how-to book will help you step out of your career rut and into action. It is written with love and punctuated with laughter. The snorting kind. And the occasional F-bomb. It’s a warm hug and a kick in the ass delivered by a straight-talking spitfire who walks the talk and has hundreds of thousands of people sharing her work online. It’s time to feel good again.
“I swear, I absolutely swear that hope has a sound…” It’s October 1991, and the residents of Casey House, Canada’s first free-standing AIDS hospice, have woken up to the life-changing news that Princess Diana will be paying them a visit. Inspired by incredible true events, Casey and Diana is the story of compassion, kindness, community, and forgiveness in the face of devastating loss.
When Gerry Coneybear, a cheerful young artist, comes to her Aunt Maggie’s funeral, she is shocked to learn that she has inherited her aunt’s rambling 200-year-old waterfront home. Unfortunately, the house comes with a multitude of her aunt’s cats as part of the bequest. As Gerry fends off the greedy, jealous relatives and the mysterious part-time housekeeper, she gradually comes to realize that her aunt may have been murdered. Cats, teacups, horticulture and art come together to help Gerry solve the mystery.
Trying to beat the mid-winter blahs by snowshoeing and cross country skiing when she?s not teaching art history at a local college (or being driven crazy by her numerous cats, cooped up in her rambling old country home), Gerry Coneybear thinks she has her busy life under control. That is, until she rescues her neighbour?s injured cat. Then a body pops up where she?d least expect it. And she even knows the victim ? slightly. From gossiping with friends to discussing events while baking at home with her housekeeper Prudence, Gerry manages to pick up a few clues, although Prudence tries to discourage her from getting involved. And at first Gerry tries to stay clear of the murder ? for murder it is. She gets to know Jean-Louis, a handsome ski instructor, and his adorable blond husky Harriet. Her friendship with the other man in her life, Doug, seems to be floundering. And Jean-Louis lives just down the road?The discovery of a mysterious package tucked up in a tree brings the police to Gerry?s home again. But that?s not all she finds in the woods.
Housekeeper Prudence Crick expects a peaceful month by the river housesitting at The Maples, her employer Gerry Coneybear’s beautiful old home. (And cat-sitting Gerry’s twenty cats, too!) But instead of peace she gets trouble. Ghosts of the past haunt her, including her murdered bank robber ex-husband. And she’s bedevilled by the present. When two houses are burned to the ground in suspicious circumstances, she’s drawn to the scene of the crime and into the lives of its victims, including one uncatchable cat. But more: she’s reached a crossroads. Should she change jobs? Buy a new home? Get married? And what should she bake for that tea party she’s hosting?
Louise Carson’s latest cozy mystery is full of delectable desserts, fast friendships, and, of course, an abundance of cats.
Catalina has an almost purrrfect life, although sometimes she is sad and sometimes she is a little bit lonely. Then one day her owners come home with not one, not two, but three puppies. Now she isn?t lonely?she?s cranky! What?s a cat to do? It takes a while, but Catalina comes to see that perhaps puppies aren?t so bad after all.
In this charming picture book, Lori Doody explores the importance of accepting change, adapting to an expanding family situation and making friends. With its playful language and retro-style illustrations, this delightful story will appeal to cat-lovers of every age.
“With this book, Lee Kvern gives us a thrilling ride, a delicious noir, both lush and intense. Each chapter is vividly wrought with a tension so palpable, the pages turn themselves. Spanning decades and continents, and with an epic scope and ensemble of characters, every reader is in for a vibrant experience!” — Bradley Somer, award-winning author of Fishbowl and Extinction
In 1983, Elle is a blackjack dealer at an Alberta casino. At the same time, Amado is a baggage handler in Manila. When Amado witnesses the assassination of a prominent political figure in Manila, he flees to Canada and ends up in the same casino as Elle; a disgruntled Hollander, Erik; and a card counter and stalker, Regrettable Russell.
Over the next thirty years, the characters remain intimately connected as their stories and histories intersect. Told from alternating points of view, this puzzle-in-progress brings each character’s pieces together that make up a whole picture that examines how everything from political espionage to intimate partner violence affects not only its direct participants but also its bystanders and witnesses.
An intimate and enlightening no-holds-barred memoir that uncovers the many unexpected details of dying, Cautiously Pessimistic is one woman’s personal account of her husband’s death and what it means to die in the public eye.
Cautiously Pessimistic is both deeply moving and funny, as it recounts McGee’s husband’s diagnosis of brain cancer and the eight months leading up to his death. It is told in the first person and through posts from Facebook and Twitter, text exchanges, and email. Alternating chapters tell the story of McGee and her husband’s tumultuous early relationship, through the use of excerpts from journals and letters. Throughout the narrative the presence of the tightly knit St. John’s arts community is strongly felt. The etiquette of offering condolences on social media is examined in an afterword by the author.