The Mi'kmaq Anthology, Volume Two In Celebration of the Life of Rita Joe

The Mi'kmaq Anthology, Volume Two

In Celebration of the Life of Rita Joe

Edited by Theresa Meuse, Lesley Choyce and Julia Swan

Autobiography, Poetry, Traditional Stories, Essays
$21.95
224 pages
6" x 9" trade paperback
ISBN 978-1-897426-29-6
(Available in October 2011)

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


It has been 14 years since the landmark publication of the first volume of The Mi'kmaq Anthology, a project initiated by Rita Joe. Mi'kmaq culture continues to thrive in Atlantic Canada and this new volume brings together many new as well as familiar writers from the Mi'kmaq community. Included are essays on culture, history, and spirituality, as well as autobiography, traditional stories and poetry in this unique volume.

Contributors include Daniel N. Paul, Patricia Doyle-Bedwell, Lindsay Marshall, Catherine Martin, Mary Louise Martin, Robert Bernard, Laura Johnson, Clayton Paul, Denise Larocque, Shalan Joudrey, Peter C. Julien, Marie Battiste, Sunset Rose Morris, Theresa Meuse, Jean Augustine-McIsaac, Alice Azure, John Sylliboy, Denise Larocque, Eva Apukjij, David Marshall, and Charles Doucette. Also included are poems from Rita Joe.

The collection is informative, varied and spirited. It includes a variety of powerful voices on many subjects and is intended to be a celebration of the life of poet, Rita Joe, who encouraged many people from her extended community to write and bring forward their poetry and stories. Rita Joe was born in Whycocomagh in 1932 and received the Order of Canada for her writing and contribution to Canadian culture. Before her death in 2007, she published several important books of poetry and inspired many younger Mi'kmaq authors.


Theresa Meuse is the former chief of Bear River First Nation and has worked in various jobs with Mi'kmaq organizations. She is an educator and advisor and author of a children's book titled The Sharing Circle. Lesley Choyce is the publisher of Pottersfield Press, an English instructor in Dalhousie University's Transition Year Program and the author of a number of books. Julia Swan is an editor with Pottersfield Press and teaches at Dalhousie University.

Cold Clear Morning New Revised Edition

Cold Clear Morning

New Revised Edition

Lesley Choyce

A Novel
300 pages
5 1/2" x 8 1/2" trade paperback
$22.95
ISBN 978-1-897426-32-6
Includes an Afterword and Interview with the Author
Currently in Development as a Feature Film

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

Now available as an ebook for your ereading pleasure:

Kindle | Kobo | Smashwords |

"I just love this book. The scenes are evocative and meld into the action seamlessly, never seeming to interrupt or delay its movement, yet are so richly detailed. I give special praise to the deeper and much more difficult challenge of creating a believable fictional musician." —Neil Peart, drummer and lyricist of Rush.


Taylor Colby grew up in the tiny Nova Scotia fishing village of Nickerson Harbour, but his guitar-playing skill led him to become a much sought-after studio musician in Los Angeles. Along with him went Laura, his childhood sweetheart and soulmate. In L.A., Laura becomes enamoured with the dark side of rock and roll life, leaving Taylor lost, distraught and deeply damaged. It is then that Taylor realizes he has to go back home to Nickerson Harbour, to confront Laura’s parents, to reunite with his father and confront the truth of his own dysfunctional family.

Back in Nova Scotia, Taylor learns that his mother, who had abandoned him as a child to move to Ontario and remarry, wants to come home to reconcile with her own past. Taylor is haunted by his loss and grief but must also come to terms with some hidden truths about Laura. As he begins to make sense of his past, he befriends a feminist professor from Philadelphia who has run away from a miserable marriage to start anew in Canada with her troubled twelve-year-old son.

Cold Clear Morning is a novel about dreams realized and dreams shattered. It is about love and loss, hurting and healing, grief and forgiving. Taylor Colby speaks his story of love and loss and what it takes to pick up the remains of a shattered life and find renewed purpose and hope. It is the story of going back to the home that you thought you could never go back to. In his odyssey from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and back home to Nova Scotia, he attempts to find real meaning to his life of adventure and despair.


"Cold Clear Morning is an evocative read. Watching Taylor Colby, his mother, and his father work through their memories and their pain, toiling towards peace, evokes powerful emotions. And then there is the sea—it speaks through the pages and mesmerizes the soul." —Kimberley Blevins, Regina Leader-Post

Lesley Choyce is also the author of over fifty books, including, for Pottersfield Press: the poetry collection The Coastline of Forgetting, children's books Far Enough Island and Famous At Last, and non-fiction books Driving Minnie's Piano: Memoirs of a Surfing Life in Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia: Shaped By The Sea, and Peggy's Cove: The Amazing History of a Coastal Village. He has also edited for Pottersfield Press: Ark of Ice: Canadian Futurefictions, The Mi'kmaq Anthology, The Mi'kmaq Anthology, Volume Two (with Rita Joe), Nova Scotia: Visions of the Future, Nova Scotia: A Traveller's Companion, and Pottersfield Nation: East of Canada.

Dancing on the shore: a celebration of life at Annapolis Basin (NEW EDITION)

Harold Horwood

with a foreword by Farley Mowat
and an introduction by Lesley Choyce
Nonfiction: Nova Scotia, Nature, Autobiography
$19.95
192 pages
6" x 9" paperback
ISBN 978-1-897426-16-6

Winner of the Evelyn Richardson Award for Nonfiction.

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

"The tides sweep over the clam flats in a great flood twice daily. The migrants sweep through the sky in great flocks twice a year. These vast rhythms, so visible in such a small place, seem very like the heartbeat and the breathing of a living planet..."

Harold Horwood moved his family to the Annapolis Basin for "the beauty of the land, the fruitfulness of the soil, the gentleness of the climate, the variety of plant and animal life, the closeness of great forests and clear waters, the presence of the sea without its storms." He soon realized that they "had come to live in one of the truly magical places on earth."

Dancing on the Shore is a detailed look at nature in Nova Scotia but also a story of one man's intimate relationship to that world. It is deep and broad, weaving science and philosophy with a passionate yearning to preserve life on this planet. Considered by many to be his greatest work, this new edition of the classic book will keep alive Harold's ideas and his spirit and inspire new generations of readers.

Harold writes, "Here, in mid-July, when the air is scented with wild roses, and meadowsweet blooms in the ditches, when the light falls dim and cool through two months' growth of young vines, you could well believe that man and world grew up together, perfectly suited and matched." With a voice of poetic power and intellectual insight, the author takes the reader on a meditative yet mentally stimulating journey that can change the way you look at yourself and the world.

"Great ideas, great visions, great musical themes," the author states, "all have this inexpressible spiritual quality that places them beyond analysis, beyond the reach of the critics, beyond any explanation that we can offer."


"I believe that this book Harold Horwood has written has built a bridge that will endure. I invite you to cross it." - Farley Mowat from the Foreword


Harold Horwood was born in Newfoundland in 1923 and died in Nova Scotia in 2006. He lived an extraordinary life as a union organizer, member of the Newfoundland House of Assembly, newspaper editor, co-founder of The Writers' Union of Canada, novelist, poet and nature writer. He published more than twenty books and was a powerful influence on many Canadian writers.

Peggy's Cove: The Amazing History of a Coastal Village

Nonfiction: Nova Scotia History, The Maritimes

146 pages, $15.95, 6"x9" Paperback (Includes photographs)

ISBN-13: 978-1-897426-00-5

ISBN-10: 1-897426-00-3

Available in July 2008

Amazon || Chapters

Here is the complete history of the famous cove and the unique village that hosts thousands of visitors each year. The story begins with the formation of the rocks along these shores and the impact of the glaciers. The Mi'kmaq were the first to live here in the summers, harvesting the
riches of the sea. A land grant in 1811 brought the first hardy settlers, who built homes and wharves and discovered that the sea could provide bounty but was also a source of great danger.

The story includes the origin of the name, Peggy's Cove, and details about the everyday life of nineteenth-century families living here. A history of the famous lighthouse is included and there are excerpts from many of the famous and not-so-famous visitors who have written
about the Cove through two centuries.

The author explores the most damaging storms, the shipwrecks, the reports of sea monsters and other strange phenomena. Fishing was always a source of income, but it changed over the years. At times the fish prices were so low it was not worth the effort and, in recent years, dramatic changes to the ocean have seen the collapse of several important species of fish.

In the twentieth century, Peggy's Cove attracted artists, writers and ultimately thousands of tourists. Sculptor William de Garthe made his home here and created his monument to the coastal fishermen out of the sheer granite outcropping in his backyard. In 1998, Swissair Flight
111 crashed off the shores of Peggy's Cove and the community opened its doors to the world in an effort to provide support for the rescue workers and the families of the victims. From the earliest days to the present, the story of Peggy's Cove has been a tale of natural wonder and
human endurance.

Lesley Choyce lives at Lawrencetown Beach and is the author of 65 books including
Nova Scotia: Shaped By The Sea and The Coasts of Canada, a history of the country's shorelines. He has also edited Nova Scotia: A Traveller's Companion.