Under the Electric Sky: The Legacy of the Bill Lynch Shows

Christopher A. Walsh

Nonfiction: The Maritimes, Carnivals, Entertainment
$19.95
160 pages
6" x 9" Trade Paperback
Includes photographs
ISBN 978-1-897426-17-3
Available in September 2010

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

"Bill Lynch and his carnival boys and girls will be back again. No need to introduce him, for his aggregation of tents, rides, and booths is known from one end of the Maritime provinces to the other." - The Halifax Mail, August 25, 1934.

Under the Electric Sky takes readers on a thrilling ride through the strange and fabled history of the Bill Lynch Shows, from its modest beginnings on McNab's Island in Halifax Harbour to the successful, tumultuous years criss-crossing the countryside to its current incarnation struggling along dark Maritime highways today.

This is one of the most curious stories of this region's past, one never completely understood and, until now, never told in its entirety. The Bill Lynch Shows would breeze into small Maritime towns after dark, packed with enough electricity and magic to illuminate the imaginations of anyone who stepped foot on the midway for the brief while it played their town. For many, its return after a long winter made summer official. The shows became entrenched in the collective psyche, at once the centre of earthly thrills and some of the greatest acts of charity ever witnessed in the region. Clarence "Soggy" Reid continued the enterprise in the same manner, until the death of a man on the carnival lot in Port Hawkesbury threatened to destroy the dream forever.

Walsh chronicles the true story of the Maritime carnival with unflinching detail, weaving flashes of the carnival's captivating past with a first-hand account of life on the carnival lot today. This is the definitive tale of the owners and hustlers who shaped the course of the business, attractions like the Turtle Woman and the Man with Two Faces who headlined the sideshow tents over the years, and the family of carnies who, for different reasons, called "the Show" home. At the core of the rough-and-tumble carnival world is a heart-rending story of sometimes misunderstood outsiders and their desperate estrangement from, and deep commitment to, the people of the Maritimes.



Christopher A. Walsh is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Calgary, Alberta. His work has appeared in the Edmonton Journal and the Halifax Chronicle-Herald and on CBC Radio in Nova Scotia. A native of Halifax, he has covered major political stories across the country and spent a few feverish weeks running with the Maritime carnival in towns throughout the region. This is his first book.

Radio Talk: Four Decades Covering the News in Atlantic Canada

Rick Howe

Nonfiction: Autobiography, The Maritimes, Newsmakers

$19.95

208 pages

6" x 9" Trade Paperback

ISBN 978-1-897426-19-7

Available in August 2010

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

Now entering his fifth decade as a radio journalist in Atlantic Canada, Rick Howe has been an eyewitness to some of the region's biggest news stories. From the 1977 Saint John police lock-up fire to Pictou County's Westray Mine disaster, from the 13th Tribe motorcycle gang's hijacking of the Princess of Acadia ferry to the RCMP's investigation into a prominent Nova Scotia politician, Howe has literally been there and seen it. Radio Talk will take you inside the news, and share with you little-known details about many of the stories familiar to residents of Canada's East Coast.

As a reporter and a commentator, Howe has had unfettered access to the newsmakers. He has been up close and personal with the famous, such as Princess Diana on board the royal yacht Britannia, and the infamous, like John Edward Kenny, a man convicted in the deaths of twenty-one men. The author also provides an insider's view of those who report the news, how they cope with the pressures of the job and how decisions are made on what stories are covered. Journalists take their jobs quite seriously, but mistakes and bloopers are also part of life on live radio. In this tell-all book, Howe reveals some of the more hilarious moments in Atlantic radio history.

Over the past four decades, the media has undergone some significant changes, some of it for the better, some of it not. Howe pulls no punches in telling readers where things have been done right and where they have gone wrong. Many of the subjects and personalities in this book are very familiar to Atlantic Canadians. Radio Talk looks behind the headlines at details that will shock and surprise readers. It will provoke discussion and generate controversy. Above all, it will certainly entertain.



Rick Howe has been a reporter, a newscaster, a news director, a commentator and a talk-show host. For several years he also wrote a column for the Halifax Daily News, and he has made numerous appearances on CTV and CBC television as a political analyst. With family roots in New Brunswick, Howe has worked in radio in Campbellton, Newcastle, Saint John and over thirty years in Halifax. Currently living in Fall River, Nova Scotia, Howe is married to former ATV/ASN television journalist Yvonne Colbert.

Women Who Care: Women's Stories of Health Care and Caring

Edited by Nili Kaplan-Myrth, MD, PhD, 

Lori Hanson, PhD and 

Patricia Thille, SC(PT), MA

Foreword by Dr Barbara Lent
Afterword by Dr Carolyn Bennett
Nonfiction: Health, Medicine, Women’s Studies
$19.95
178 pages
6" x 9" Trade Paperback
ISBN 978-1-897426-22-7
Available in September 2010

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

In her third year of medical training - discouraged by how little focus there was on caring - a young woman was faced with a decision: she could throw her hands up and quit or she could risk speaking up and work toward change. She decided to send out a call asking women to share their experiences of health care and caring. Her e-mail inbox immediately overflowed with stories from women across Canada. Together, this amazing group of women wrote Women Who Care.

Most women have stories to tell about their experiences of health care. They care for themselves through personal health and illness; they seek care from others; they become caregivers to their children, partners, aging parents and extended families. Some work as health care professionals - physicians, nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, social workers, psychologists. Others work in community centres and shelters, or as health administrators, health policy-makers, women's health researchers, and as feminist leaders and activists in women's health.

Women Who Care is a collection of women’s stories about caring. Through prose and poetry, this book captures the personal and professional values and expectations of women caregivers at each stage in their lives and careers. It examines women's experiences as the providers and recipients of health care.



Nili Kaplan-Myrth, MD, PhD, is a medical anthropologist and physician. She has expertise in determinants of health, women's health, disability studies and Indigenous self-determination in health, with a strong commitment to action-based qualitative research, feminism and social justice. Her three wonderful children, her friends and family haven't let her quit medicine yet.

Lori Hanson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Community Health and Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan with interests in community activism, gender and development, health equity, sexual and reproductive health, health promotion, and transformative education. In her spare time, she raises her two sets of twins and works with a great group of community and university women involved in the Saskatoon Women's Community Coalition.

Patricia Thille, Sc(PT), MA, is a former physical therapist and health services researcher. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Calgary and balances her academic work with community outreach as a healthy sexuality educator with Venus Envy.

Long Ago and Far Away: A Miramichi Family Memoir

Wayne Curtis

Nonfiction: Autobiography, New Brunswick, The Miramichi
$19.95
240 pages
5 1/2" x 8 1/2" Trade Paperback
ISBN 978-1-897426-20-3
Available in September 2010

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

A memoir set in the Miramichi, Long Ago and Far Away reflects how a family lived and prospered through the late 1880s, when Wayne Curtis's grandfather was a young man. The story follows the lives of Wayne and his father, chronicling Wayne's youth and adult years in rural New Brunswick. He brings back to life an extraordinary time and place and reflects upon the changes that have all but erased those days gone by. But the book is also a reminder of what it was like growing up in the backwoods of New Brunswick with all its joys and hardships.

The memoir tells the story of the rough and rowdy Miramichi of the past when the hunting and killing of wild animals was the norm and people struggled to survive off the land. Not natural hunters, both Wayne and his father wrestled with the idea of killing anything, but had to hunt to feed the family. In the old days of the Miramichi, guns were everywhere. But as Wayne matured into manhood, he grew away from hunting and would not kill anything bigger than a mosquito.

Long Ago and Far Away is a poetic yet honest look at growing up in very difficult times. It charts the growing pains involved in fighting the peer pressure from fellow countrymen who carried on with the old way of life. The story is a vivid and touching family history written by a skilled literary master willing to share the story of how he was shaped by the land, the community and the family that raised him.



Wayne Curtis was born and raised in the rural Miramichi community of Keenan. A high school dropout, he has worked at many jobs in the woods and in factories, including six years with General Motors. He has also been a storekeeper and a river guide. Returning to school during his adult years, he took night courses to get his high school diploma, followed by three years of university, eventually earning an honorary doctorate from St. Thomas University. Wayne has written for The Globe and Mailand The National Post and is the author of three novels, four books of short stories, and a screenplay for the CBC. Long Ago and Far Away is his thirteenth book.

The Hermit of Africville: The Life of Eddie Carvery

Jon Tattrie

Nonfiction: Biography, Nova Scotia, History, Black Culture
$19.95
208 pages
6" x 9" Trade Paperback
Includes photographs
ISBN 978-1-897426-18-0
Available in July 2010

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
or Amazon or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

Eddie Carvery was born in Africville, Nova Scotia, when the African-Nova Scotian seaside village was midway through its third century. As a teenager, he watched his world torn down as his friends and family were compelled to leave. After Africville was bulldozed in the 1960s under the guise of "urban renewal," Eddie Carvery returned to the site of his former hometown and pitched a tent in protest.

After forays into careers as a community organizer, sheet-metal worker and fisherman, Eddie returned to the ruins of Africville in 1970 to start his protest for the reclamation of his people's land and history. Forty years, three families, seven heart attacks and numerous attempts on his life later, he remains living on the land where he was born. He's been shot at, had his residence set on fire and been run off his land countless times. His struggles with his demons of addiction and violence have cost him his families and his entire adult life. He's tried to leave, but always he returned to Africville.

Sometimes accompanied by his brother, Victor, and sometimes by his friend and bodyguard, a dog called Spike, Eddie has lived as a virtual hermit in a small trailer across from the results of the urban renewal: a dog park called Seaview. All traces of his childhood community are gone, except for him - the last resident of Africville. There, through the solitude and frozen winters, he's walked the long walk to healing, rooted in the land of his ancestors. Dismissed as a squatter, he stayed in Africville. Searching through the ruins of his community and his battered mind, he's rebuilt himself and come to the conclusion that he's failed at everything, except one thing: Africville. In this riveting account, Jon Tattrie captures the story of Eddie Carvery and his struggle for survival and, ultimately, justice.

Ghosts of Nova Scotia: Tenth Anniversary Edition

Ghosts of Nova Scotia: Tenth Anniversary Edition

Darryll Walsh

$19.95
176 pages
6" x 9" Trade Paperback
Includes Photographs
ISBN 978-1-897426-21-0
Available in July 2010

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
Amazon or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

Explore Nova Scotia's colourful legacy of spooks and spectres in this definitive collection of traditional and contemporary tales from Canada's Ocean Playground. For this tenth anniversary edition, Ghosts of Nova Scotia has been comprehensively updated and expanded to include stories of ghosts, banshees, phantom ships, fairies, forerunners, buried treasure, cursed places and much more. Parapsychologist Darryll Walsh has gathered more than 275 haunting stories from every corner of the province and dares you to read them during a stormy night.

From the original Mi'kmaq to the later European colonizations, Nova Scotia has been a melting pot of rich cultural folklore and mysterious events. The extraordinary tales from the past have been handed down from generation to generation with new stories being added over the years, making this province one of the most haunted places on earth.

Discover the phantom admiral who prowls the shores of Bedford Basin; search for hidden gold along the South Shore, if you can avoid the headless ghosts which protect it; explore Nova Scotia's own triangle of terror; prowl the Cape Breton Highlands for Sasquatch, and listen to the horrifying screams echoing through Dagger Woods. Almost every community has its share of terrifying tales and many of them you will find here for the first time. You'll learn of Captain Walter Tygart's unfortunate encounters with Fort Lawrence Ridge's resident witch, Nelly Edwards, in the 1780s and why a headless ghost haunts Minudie. The story of the feu follets, or jack o'lantern, from St. Joseph du Moine, Inverness County, includes advice on how to get rid of this fiery ball of light, while the tale from Malignant Cove reveals how this Antigonish County locale got its name. Whether it's a frightening story of a Grey Lady or the vengeful Gaelic bochdan, these eerie stories present a unique profile of Nova Scotia that will add to our rich history of folklore and mythology.