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Roseway Publishing aims to publish literary work that is rooted in and relevant to struggles for social justice. We are interested in publishing works of fiction, creative non-fiction, biographies and other literary writing that has a social justice theme.
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Words Out There
Women Poets in Atlantic Canada
Edited by Jeanette Lynes
“A book of women poets in Atlantic Canada — not a moment too soon.” —PK Page “Every once in a while an anthology comes along that feels absolutely necessary. It tells us something we need to know about a certain group of people or it alerts us to significant goings-on outside the centres of influence and power. This is such a book. But beyond what it tells us of women poets who write out of the Atlantic provinces, it demands our attention because the writing is so… (more information)
Two of Me
Kim Atwood
“As a therapist, I keep an eye out for creative works which capture the truth of childhood trauma or of the healing process. Kim Atwood’s book, Two of Me, is rich and full in its detailed description of the imaginative and real world of a young girl-child growing up in a fishing village on the seacoast; it is unflinching in its portrayal of the violence and chaos which reign in the home of an alcoholic parent. Atwood’s characters reveal themselves in page after page of simple,… (more information)
The People and Josh Wilson
John Reid
Josh Wilson’s grade nine history project leads him stumbling into a parallel world where Native American people have not been displaced by colonists. Instead, the People thrive in a powerful domain and co-exist with small colonies in Massachusetts and New York. Josh has only a few days to find his way back to his own world. His journey among leaders of the colonists and the Mahican people is an action packed trip through an alternate history that inspires readers to question the past and rethink… (more information)
The Hundefraulein Papers
Poems
Kathy Mac
Hunde/fräulein: Dog/nanny. For five and a half years (1995-2001) Kathy Mac lived in Sambro Head, NS, looking after anywhere from four to twelve English Setters. The post entailed maintaining the ocean-side doghouse and looking after the many, varied houseguests of the hundemutter — ocean activist Elisabeth Mann Borgese, youngest daughter of Thomas Mann. These poems take their tone from the days and dogs that inspired them — by turns extravagant, intense, celebratory, wistful. (more information)
The Guy in the Green Truck
John St. Amand – A Biography
James N. McCrorie
Few mature men and women choose to abandon secure employment with handsome health and retirement benefits for a cause and an uncertain future. This biographical memoir is about a man who did just this, abandoning a promising career as a sociologist at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario, for the turbulent life of union organizer in Nova Scotia. In one of his first organizing campaigns, John St. Amand crisscrossed industrial Cape Breton signing up workers to the new Canadian Miner’s Union… (more information)
The English Language in Nova Scotia
Essays on Past and Present Developments in English across the Province
Edited by Lilian Falk, Margaret Harry
Can we offer you some Patti-pans? Some fungee or lassybread? How about a derasifying padana? Before you absquotilate in a dander, come aboard of this anthology, and explore some of the fascinating ways in which the English language has developed in Nova Scotia. This book covers such topics as pronunciation, semantics, grammatical structures, language contact, dialect features, ethnic and gender roles. nicknames, and place names. (more information)
Quilt
Donna E. Smyth
Quilt is a remarkable work. With a unique and compelling voice, Donna Smyth tells a story that is full of complex relationships, raw domestic violence, and a saving compassion. As I read I kept thinking, “Why have I heard nothing about this novel?” —Budge Wilson, author of The Leaving and The Courtship Quilt affirms that women’s creativity has a long tradition, that it has always been collective, a web of women remembering the traces of the past, reworking them, interweaving… (more information)
Pubs, Pulpits and Prairie Fires
Elroy Deimert
History professor Paul Wessner hangs out at BJ’s Bar and Cue Club on Tuesday nights sharing his accounts of the On-to-Ottawa Trek and the Regina Riot in 1935. Due to local interest in his research, he invites Doc Savage and Matt Shaw, real-life leaders on the Trek, to deliver first-hand accounts of the Trek and the Riot. He encourages listeners to contribute when no guests are scheduled to tell their stories. The narratives broaden to the evolution of the Social Credit and CCF prairie fires… (more information)
Passion Fruit Tea
Eleonore Schönmaier
These are candid but sensitive stories about the relationship between parents and children, whether they live and work in a fishing village in Nova Scotia or in Northern Canada. “Passion Fruit Tea is one gutsy brew. Eleonore Schönmaier’s men and women will win hearts and break them, too.” —Linda Svendsen, author of Marine Life (more information)
Out of the Depths (New Extended Edition)
The Experiences of Mi’kmaw Childrn at the Indian Residential School at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia
Isabelle Knockwood
“The Residential School experience had serious negative consequences for many of our people who have suffered in silence for too long. It is time to take the first step and let others know they are not alone in their suffering. No matter how painful, the stories of our people must be told and heard. Through sharing our past, we can begin to heal ourselves, our communities, our people as we look to a better tomorrow.” —Phil Fontaine, Grand Chief, Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, former… (more information)
Nail Builders Plan for Strength and Growth
Poems
Kathy Mac
“Poets with Kathy Mac’s impeccable technical skill are not too hard to find, but very few can touch her for emotional power, thematic range, gentle humour or quiet courage. As Robert Heinlein said of another writer, these poems should be served with a whisk broom, so that the customer may brush the sawdust off himself when he gets back up.” —Spider Robinson, author of Telempath (1976), The Free Lunch (2001) and many others in between On Mac’s 1991 chapbook, Dust From… (more information)
Lily
Christina Gunn
He did appear, but slowly and cautiously. The lead rider, they all knew, although mainly from stories. Both captors and captives grew silent as they watched her. Slowly, looking puzzled, she walked her horse in a circle. Something caught her eye and she wheeled the beast around. ”It’s a trap,” she screamed, but already the forest rang with swords clashing. “Get out!” Her stallion plunged into the fray as she beat down the Foresters trying to grasp the greatest prize… (more information)
Letters to Levi
A Young Fisherman’s Mail
Edited by Joan Stephenson
“These letters to Levi are a rare find. Not only are they a delight to read, they are also an invitation to search for further buried treasures of correspondence, particularly in long-settled communities where extended family patterns remain unbroken. The reading public, avid readers of local history, and a broad academic community will join to applaud Roseway for the publication of these letters by people who lived in Nova Scotia’s vital South Shore fishing communities.” &mdash… (more information)
L’sitkuk
The Story of the Bear River Mi’kmaw Community
Darlene A. Ricker
“We have endured slavery, starvation, genocide and wars, but the spirit of our people has survived. We have one battle left to fight — ourselves.” — L’sitkuk Chief Frank Meuse Jr L’sitkuk (pronounced elsetkook) is the original name for the Bear River Mi’kmaw community, which is part of the Mi’kmaw First Nation. Nestled close to the Bear River watershed, this tiny native community is regaining its culture, language and identity after hundreds of years… (more information)
In the Open
Women Survivors of Abuse Tell Their Stories
Edited by Kathleen Tudor
“Like all the women who took part in this book, I have a message for you. Please remember that no matter how desperate and hopeless your situation may get, there is a way out. I found my way out and for the first time in nine years I feel free! “I wish all of you the power and strength it takes to discover your own freedom, and I pray that all of the pain that you endure until then will form a path to your independence and freedom.” —Jean Marie MacDonald “If anyone… (more information)
How the Cougar Came to be Called the Ghost Cat
Michael James Isaac
Illustrated by Dozay (Arlene) Christmas The human need to belong is very powerful, so much so that we often sacrifice parts of who we are in order to be accepted. This is the tale of a young cougar, Ajig, who makes this sacrifice — and pays dearly. A curious and adventurous cougar, Ajig decides to build a new home in a strange forest. When he finds that all of the animals in the forest are afraid of him, Ajig agrees to stop behaving like a cougar so that he can make friends.… (more information)
Growing Up Salty and Other Plays
Natalie Meisner
The questions raised in Natalie Meisner’s plays will follow you out the door. At their root is the ghost that haunts the modern theatre: What is the role of live theatre in the information age? Why is it necessary? What do we get from the experience that cannot be had in any other artistic medium? As the plays progress, elements of parody and slapstick are used in tandem with highly-charged dramatic moments in order to challenge the traditional role of the audience member. (Am I an observer… (more information)
Getting Away
K.K. Richardson
from Getting Away… “After trying numerous times to get Peter and Teddy and the nightmare scene of the sliding car off my mind, I finally got up and lit the fire. I walked around and around the tiny area, colliding with the rockers of my favorite chair or avoiding shin hits on the sharp-edged table covered with magazines. I didn’t even light a candle. The glow from the fire lightened the gloom a bit but my own gloom I could hardly deal with. I should have spent more time… (more information)
Drive-by Saviours
Chris Benjamin
Chris Benjamin masterfully, magically weaves together the seemingly disconnected worlds of Mark, a failed social-worker-turned-unhappy-grant-writer coming to the end of an even unhappier relationship, and Bumi, an Indonesian illegal immigrant on the run from his past and the ocd that dogs his present. Their chance encounter on a Toronto subway launches them on a complicated friendship that allows both men to finally confront the demons in their pasts and to find the hope in their futures. &mdash… (more information)
Dim Time and History on a Garrison Clock
A Collection of Poetry
Margaret Benjamin Hammer
”This is modern poetry: its eye always open for the telling image, ear cocked to an internal music, and tongue ready to taste the tartness of irony…. These poems are not only thoughtful in an intellectual sense but in a compassionate one as well. Peggy’s poems delve into the human condition and reach out to the animate world around us. In all, there is praise for the passing moment and a catching at it with the gossamer mesh of imagination.” —Harry Thurston, poet… (more information)
Deep Roots
Kathleen Tudor
It’s the early 1950s, and Ira and Lydia Hardy, in their 70s, join their neighbours and large family to face the challenge of their lives. The government has chosen their fishing community for the construction of a provincial park. The community rallies against the plan, encouraged by Ira’s gentle and persistent efforts and those of his radical daughter Sal, home from college to help in the protest. Between lively gatherings in the family home in Collupy Point, Ira tramps across woodlands… (more information)
Counting Crows
Jenni Blackmore
This collection of stories and poems charts various pathways and detours in the universal quest for love. It’s a journey towards joy which begins with the call of a frog searching for a mate and ends as a woman inadvertently thwarts her own desire as she attempts to construct the perfect token of her love. Between these two way points, past is tightly bound to present and ready to snap back into focus at the slightest provocation. Needy characters form unlikely liaisons, they stumble over… (more information)
Conductor of Waves
Stories
Darcy Rhyno
”Darcy Rhyno’s stories evoke the rich history of place in a way that makes you care about it and want to know more. More than this, he snaps the reader awake by layine bare the bones of a character’s life. It is this ability to see what’s out there, and offer it back to us, unflinchingly and compellingly, that drives Rhyno’s stopries home.” Anne Simpson, author of Canterbury Beach ”Darcy Rhyno’s stories eloquently evoke the experience of growing… (more information)
Back Talk
Plays of Black Experience
Louise Delisle
”To read Delisle’s plays is to be sat right sown on the front stoop or round the kitchen table of Africadian fact. She puts us there, centre stage, right in the midst of the country-and-town reality of The People philosophizin, drinkin. singin, prayin, quiltin,laughin, gamblin, churchgoin, runnin, braidin hair, lovin, workin, fightin, talkin back to cops an such, and just keepin on keepin on. Delisle’s sociology is exactly who we be, so doncha get upset; her vision of our history… (more information)
Archibald MacMechan
Canadian Man of Letters
Janet E. Baker
Archibald MacMechan taught English at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, between 1889 and 1931. His students included Ernest Buckler, Lucy Maud Montgomery and Helen Creighton, and his influence as a teacher was far reaching. He was very active as a book reviewer whose reviews were widely read and often ahead of their time. Writers as disparate as Herman Melville and Virginia Woolf wrote to him expressing their appreciation of his readings of their work. MacMechan himself thought he would… (more information)
Among the Saints
Selected Stories
Donna E. Smyth
”Donna E. Smyth — adventures with words; she is always doing something new and unique. Beginning with her visceral morality, her stories are startling, nerve wracking, provocative: she combines Angela Carter’s beautiful style with Patricia Highsmith’s malevolent atmospheres. Smyth shatters clichés and dismisses mere sociology. She knows that pleasure is besieged by terror. She tells us what we don’t want to know, but need to know. Smyth’s writing disturbs… (more information)
Alice The Musical
Peter Oliver
Alice, The Musical is a classic tale of making theatre happen. In the inspiring words of Mickey Rooney (Babes in Arms, 1939), “Hey kids, let’s put on a show. We can do it, and we can do it here!” Or, in Lewis Carroll logic, “Don’t just do something! Stand there! Something may happen!” And something really did happen. In a small Nova Scotian town, over the past three years, a group of sixty-odd people has produced quality musicals in its new theatre converted from… (more information)
Accidental Opportunities
A Journey Through Many Doors, An Autobiography
Bridglal Pachai
Bridglal (Bridge) Pachai, a life long advocate of social justice, was born in a thatched roof cottage in Umbulwana, South Africa. His journey has taken him from South Africa to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Along the way he has taught history at universities in South Africa, Malawi, The Gambia and Halifax. He has also served as director of the Black Cultural Centre in Nova Scotia and as director of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. In the words of Tom McInnis, his senior when Bridge was director… (more information)
A Legacy of Love
Remembering Muriel Duckworth, Her Later Years, 1996-2009
Marion Douglas Kerans
Muriel Duckworth passed away August 22, 2009 in her one hundred and first year. In the weeks that followed memorial services were held in Austin Quebec, Halifax, Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. People from across Canada recognized that her passing marked the end of an era and they wanted to not only remember her but to come together to be a part of her ongoing legacy of love. This book brings together stories from Muriel’s family and close friends from the past dozen years… (more information)