2015 was pretty good to the writing side of me. There were two new books and an exciting new exhibit polished off during the year. In June the history book co-written with Ronnie-Gilles LeBlanc about the Landscape of Grand Pré UNESCO World Heritage Site came out from Nimbus Publishing; in late August my third novel, Crossings, A Thomas Pichon Novel was published by Cape Breton University Press. Then in the fall, the major new installation at Truro’s Colchester Historeum opened. Well, actually, the official opening when speeches get made will happen in February 2016. But the words and images and artifacts and all the rest are already in place.

I also wrote a travel piece about my recent travels in Alsace and submitted another travel piece to the Nashwaak Journal about an earlier walking adventure in England’s Cotswalds.

Looking ahead, my current priority is to finish the writing of what I hope will be my next book. It’s a story about a young woman who grows up in a wealthy Cape Breton family in the late 19th and early 20 century and then goes to nurse in France during the First World War. It is very much based on and inspired by the historical figure of Katharine McLennan (1892-1975) about whom I once did a great deal of historical research and some writing. This time round, I’m placing her in a novel and making her coming-of-age come alive.

The image shown is taken from my computer screen, with the working title I am using for the novel. So far with my fiction I’m only batting .333 on titles for the final book. The only one the publisher kept was the one for Crossings. So whether or not “Something true” remains the title for the current work-in-progress remains to be seen. If so, it would bring me up to .500.

Late 2015 and into 2016 also has me playing mentor — through a program of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia — to another writer as she sorts out the novel she is working on. More on that project of hers, and how I fit in, early in the New Year.

Happy 2016 to one and all! Bonne année 2016 à tous et toutes!

There is now a link on every page of this site to all the images I post on Instagram. If you like that kind of thing, check it out.

(As you notice, there are also links to my postings on Facebook and Twitter as well. Of the three forums, I confess I have come to prefer Instagram. There are some amazing images posted on the universe that makes up that particular social media. So many, in fact, one has to make sure it does not take up more time than it should. There are still books, articles and exhibits to write.)

Frosty the Bookman is at Halifax’s Keshen Goodman Library: a reader’s and writer’s dream!

The controversy surrounding Edward Cornwallis — his statue and anything else that carries his name — continues. So much has been said already about Cornwallis’s authorization of scalp bounties on Mi’kmaw men, women and children that I don’t intend to add much to the debate. But I do have a few things to say.

Mi’kmaw historian Dan Paul correctly points out that what Cornwallis authorized would in today’s context be called genocide. I agree. Back in the mid-18th century, however, what Edward Cornwallis approved was far from exceptional. Similar scalp bounties were approved by other British colonial governments in New England, and here in the Maritimes the French administration at Louisbourg paid Mi’kmaw warriors bounties for the scalps of British colonists that were brought to their stronghold. From my point of view, the issue surrounding scalp bounties has less to do with Edward Cornwallis as a demonic figure and more to do with the time period in which such repugnant crimes could be committed and considered normal.

Building on that last point, I suggest that Halifax take the presence of the Cornwallis statue as a teaching opportunity. Rather than remove it, leave the statue where it is and add a commemoration to the Mi’kmaq facing it. That new commemoration to the Mi’kmaq would need to be of equivalent stature, not some mere token panel. On the other hand, a few panels setting the context for why there are dual commemorations would be in order.

As a society, we have come to a new awareness in recent decades of some of the injustices of the past. The Cornwallis statue gives us an educational opportunity we should not lose.

I’m really liking Instagram. The total number of images I have posted so far is around 200 — and growing all the time. Most are photos taken by me, but a few were taken by others. In the latter case, I thought maybe the wider world might want to see them (like the 2006 storm at the Fortress of Louisbourg or the images on the blinds at Truro’s Colchester Historeum). Many images are of places in I like in France, though there are now many of Toronto (thanks to a recent 12-day visit), with some of Halifax and other places in Nova Scotia. Below are three of my Toronto shots.

The link to my small corner on Instagram is     https://www.instagram.com/ajbjohnston/

My first encounter with a book club — yesterday in Truro, NS — could not have been a better experience. It was fascinating to hear the insightful comments from the readers about my first novel, Thomas, A Secret Life; and fun to respond to their thoughtful questions about different aspects of the book. Each reader had her own take on the action, characters, mood, momentum and themes of the book.

If other book clubs are anything like the one I visited, how great is that! Long live reading culture. It is a pillar (if not the foundation) of our civilization. Fiction, history or how-to; about the past, present, or future: books stimulate our minds like nothing else.

Thanks Truro book club for a very good time yesterday morning.