ANTHOLOGIES
Here you will find collections that Lesley Choyce has edited.
High Water Mark
Atlantic Canadian Stories 1983-2023
April 3, 2023 | Pottersfield Press
Buy the Book: Amazon | Chapters/Indigo
High Water Mark is an anthology of short fiction from some of the finest writers of Atlantic Canada over the last forty years. Included are writers from various communities throughout the region and stories that reflect a wide range of writing talent from older and younger writers.
Twenty authors have contributed work to this long-awaited collection representative of the literature of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Among the contributors are Sheldon Currie, Harold Horwood, Maxine Tynes, Patrick O?Flaherty, J.J. Steinfeld, Budge Wilson, Carol Bruneau, Guyleigh Johnson and Chris Benjamin among others.
Fiction means many things to many people. As Life of Pi author, Yann Martel, noted, “Fiction is the selective transforming of reality. The twisting of it to bring out the essence.” Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried, echoed this when he wrote, “That’s what fiction is for. It’s for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.” Atlantic Canadian writers know instinctively that “truth” is not always what it seems and that it varies widely among cultural groups. Here, in heartfelt and often raw prose, a wealth of gifted authors from different backgrounds investigate their truths through a fictional lens, often pushing the boundaries of the genre to uncover and hold up to the light what is real and what is true. High Water Mark is a compendium of stories that indeed attempts to get at the essence of life in the Canadian Far East in all its rich diversity while exploring some of the hidden “truths” that are not always obvious in our day-to-day lives.
The Nova Scotia Book of Fathers
December 20, 2016 | Pottersfield Press
Buy the Book: Amazon | Chapters/Indigo
In this poignant, often funny, and heartfelt collection, Nova Scotia authors and artists put to the page their thoughts and emotions about their fathers, who raised, inspired, loved, and taught them -- and occasionally drove them crazy. The Nova Scotia Book of Fathers includes stories by Alexander MacLeod, Carol Bruneau, Anne Murray, Harry Thurston, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Frank Cameron, Joan Baxter, Jon Tattrie, Bruce Graham, Lesley Choyce, Lenore Zann, David Mossman, Janice Landry, Lindsay Ruck, Ian Colford, Julia Swan, Craig Flinn, and Daniel Paul.
Here are fathers of all kinds: quiet, thoughtful, wise men; stubborn and headstrong men; and men whose careers and circumstances called forth public bravery and heroism. Included too are fathers whose mark on the world is more private but just as compelling, just as fearless, just as noteworthy. They embody the strength everyone needs to weather the storms of life, the humour that helps us to laugh at crucial moments, and the stalwart vision it takes to raise daughters and sons and send them out into the world.
Available in Paperback and as an Ebook.
Nova Scotia Love Stories
December 21, 2015 | Pottersfield Press
Buy the Book: Amazon | Chapters/Indigo
In Nova Scotia Love Stories, Lesley Choyce has assembled some of the province’s most beloved authors who explore through fact and fiction the myriad ways in which a love story exists. These writers with a strong emotional connection to this shaped-by-the-sea province demonstrate the many guises and moods of love: for the young, the aged and all points in between. There is love that is healing, heart-throbbing joyful, but also love that is disillusioned, unusual, possibly misguided, but always life-changing. The stories are heartwarming, touching, funny, and profound. This collection will convince any reader that love thrives and abides here on the wave-swept shores of Nova Scotia.
A young girl experiences profound attraction to the enigmatic but charismatic Manuel Jenkins in Budge Wilson’s tale; a child tells of having two mothers in Bruce Graham’s short story; and Marjorie Simmins and Silver Donald Cameron each describe how they met and fell in love, bridging their lives from opposite coasts of Canada. Maureen Hull’s Miranda finds herself in a relationship with a rather unlikely partner; Jim Lotz and Lindsay Ruck tell of real-life love stories: deep, long-standing commitment between two kindred souls, through a lifetime of shared adventures.
There are other jewels here from Jon Tattrie, Steven Laffoley, Sheldon Currie, Harold Horwood, Carol Bruneau, Michael Ungar, William Kowalski, Don Aker, Chris Benjamin, and Lesley Choyce. Collectively, these writers explore many facets of this most human emotion.
Available in Paperback and as an Ebook.
The Mi'kmaq Anthology Volume 2
September 15, 2011 | Pottersfield Press
Buy the Book: Amazon | Chapters/Indigo
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.
Available in Paperback.
Nova Scotia: Visions of the Future
June 15, 2009 | Pottersfield Press
Buy the Book: Amazon | Chapters/Indigo
In the summer of 2008, Pottersfield editor Lesley Choyce sent a letter to a select and varied list of Nova Scotians to contribute to a book about this province’s future. He invited some of the best minds (and hearts) around the province to present their vision of this possible province of the future.
Contributors would write about the environment, technology, immigration, social aspects, urban life, rural life, energy, politics, government, family, economics, forests, the ocean and much more. The bolder the vision, the better. Stories, personal opinions, and controversial ideas were encouraged. Which future? Anything beyond ten years and up to a thousand.
The results of that request were varied, ambitious and surprising. This most insightful book may set in motion some serious action that can help Nova Scotia live up to its full future potential. The writing is personal, provocative, reflective, proactive, and thoroughly captivating by over forty contributors from many divers fields of expertise.
Available in Paperback.
Nova Scotia: A Traveller's Companion
January 3, 2006 | Pottersfield Press
Buy the Book: Amazon | Chapters/Indigo
A varied and provacative array of writing about this province by residents and visitors through the centuries.
Available in Paperback.
Atlantica
October 15, 2001 | Goose Lane Editions
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Atlantica is the first major anthology of Atlantic fiction since Best Maritime Short Stories was published in 1988 and showcases stories by some of Canada's most exciting authors — established, newly popular, and emerging. Given the regional penchant for storytelling, it's not surprising that the Maritimes and Newfoundland produce a continuous stream of spellbinding writers.
Remarkably diverse in age, style, and cultural identity, the writers in this anthology - including Anne Simpson, Carol Bruneau, Lynn Coady, Alistair MacLeod, and more - raise a common voice that defines Atlantic Canada. Each with an individual approach to language and writing, they offer a collective view of the east, conscious of tradition but not confined by it. By turns funny, poignant and pensive, the stories in Atlantica firmly place eastern Canadian culture on the world map of literature.
Available in Paperback.
The Mi'kmaq Anthology
January 1, 1997 | Pottersfield Press
Buy the Book: Amazon | Chapters/Indigo
A varied and spiritual collection of work by the Mi''kmaq writers of Atlantic Canada. Both young and old stories and storytellers combine talents to produce short stories, poetry, and personal essays.
Available in Paperback and as an Ebook.
Ark of Ice: Canadian Futurefiction
1992 | Pottersfield Press
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Drawing from this country's most skillful and visionary writers, this collection bristles with the unexpected, the whimsical, the foreboding and the fantastic.
Available in Paperback.
The Cape Breton Collection
January 1, 1984 | Pottersfield Press
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The Cape Breton Collection contains some of the finest 20th-century fiction and poetry from the island. With selections from authors like Farley Mowat, Hugh MacLennan and Silver Donald Cameron, the volume includes a wide range of styles and moods.
Available in Paperback.