Sweet writing home, that is

I am more than greatly pleased to announce that the Center for the Writing Arts in Fairhope, Alabama has awarded me a three-month term as Writer-in-Residence. My residency will be from January to March 2017, a pretty nice time for a Nova Scotia boy to be south — living and writing in a temperate clime rather than enduring snow and sleet.

I was cleaning up the furnace room this week and came across a sketch of me that the late Lewis Parker, the supremely talented painter and illustrator of Canadian historical scenes, did of me one day at Louisbourg back in the 1980s. Lew became a great friend, and something akin to a virtual grandfather to our three kids, as I advised and he painted two large murals depicting Louisbourg as we think it appeared in 1744. Those paintings are a highlight of any visit to the Fortress of Louisbourg NHS if one comes across them in the Commissaire-Ordonnateur’s House.

Here below is that sketch, and a photo taken by fellow historian Ken Donovan of Lewis and I laughing about something.

Here is a 28-minute film produced by the Potlotek Cultural Society that tells the story of the centuries-old altar that dates back to the French regime on Cape Breton Island (then Ile Royale) and how it finally returned to the care of the Mi’kmaq in 2015. Sandy Balcom and I were honoured to be asked to provide some historical background to the story.

Stories are not just at the heart of any civilization, they really are that civilization.

Stories are everything and everywhere — from gossip and oral traditions to religions to films, plays, radio, television, songs and poetry and of course books.

If you read, and even more if you write, you likely already know about the important new initiative in Nova Scotia called Books Start Here. If you have not yet heard of it, please check it out. Our distinctive Maritime culture, not to mention lots of jobs and economic impact, need all the help they can get in this era of global reductionism. That is, we need a vital publishing industry that connects with the stories of who we are and aspire to be, and examples of poets, novelists, historians, illustrators and editors who will inspire the generations to come. Or think of it this way: we should be providing some of our own self-reliant cultural reference points and not just consuming what is generated in LA, New York and Toronto.

I am sorry to see the beginning of the end for the Cape Breton University Press. It has published many wonderful books of history and fiction, as well as essays and poetry, over its long and productive lifespan.

 CBU Press is closing up shop not because of any shortage of good manuscripts being written by Cape Breton writers or those with Cape Breton connections. Rather, it’s simply a business decision taken by the university that has paid its way for many decades. It’s a challenging time for universities and CBU Press is being ended as a cost-saving measure. No other university in Atlantic Canada has ever had a press like CBUP.

Rather than dwell on what is being lost, I am choosing to be thankful for what existed for so long. Thanks to CBU Press thousands of readers have enjoyed and learned from A Forest for Calum, Trapper Boy and hundreds of other wonderful books.

So long CBUP. You will be missed.

And best wishes to Nimbus Publishing, based in Halifax, as it picks up some of CBUP’s titles and continues to make them available to the world.