The Crow Who Tampered With Time, an acclaimed collection of essays by author Lloyd Ratzlaff

The Crow Who Tampered With Time, acclaimed collection of literary essays by noted Saskatchewan author Lloyd Ratzlaff, finds new home with Shadowpaw Press

 

The Crow Who Tampered With Time, an acclaimed collection of essays reflecting on nature and spirituality by noted Saskatchewan author Lloyd Ratzlaff, now has a new home with Shadowpaw Press Reprise, which publishes new editions of notable, previously published work. Shadowpaw Press will also be republishing Ratzlaff’s second collection of essays, Backwater Mystic Blues, in 2023.

“The Crow Who Tampered With Time was published twenty years ago by Thistledown Press,” says Ratzlaff. “It was my first book, and after three printings seemed to have run its course. To have this new edition released by Shadowpaw Press makes me feel (as Mark Twain said) ‘very proud and happy.’”

“Each essay in The Crow Who Tampered With Time is a sparkling gem of literary nonfiction. As a whole, the collection elicits the full panoply of emotions from readers, who will close the book feeling both thoughtful and fulfilled,” says Edward Willett, editor and publisher of Shadowpaw Press. “I’m thrilled to be able to bring The Crow Who Tampered With Time back into the marketplace, where I hope many new readers will find it and fall in love with it as I did.”

The Crow Who Tampered With Time can be ordered through any brick-and-mortar or online bookstore. It can also be purchased directly from Shadowpaw Press at https://shadowpawpress.com/product/the-crow-who-tampered-with-time/.

More about the book

In this collection of essays, Lloyd Ratzlaff brings the prairie landscape to life through a capacious imagination charged with wonder and the gentle irony of an awareness tempered by time and love. Ratzlaff connects with the challenges posed by skepticism and belief, countering both the cynicism and doctrinairism of contemporary life with a renewed praise of the profound depths of the spirit and the natural world.

Critical praise

“The Crow Who Tampered With Time blossoms with essays that find radiance and coherence in a world (both natural and human) that formal religious dogma has forgotten. A visionary humility and an original, engaging voice make these essays and recollections both accessible and wonder-filled . . . This is a book of exquisite imagery, humorous observation, breathtaking honesty and profound insight. The essays pulse with emotional poignancy . . . ” – All Lit Up

“Sometimes we read exactly the right book at exactly the right time in our life. The Crow Who Tampered With Time, a book of short, spiritual reflections by Saskatoon’s Lloyd Ratzlaff, was a healing balm for me. I took it into my garden, pulled a chair into the sun, and didn’t move again—except to wipe tears of joy and enlightenment—until I’d completed it . . . The author is a man who can sit alone in a park and announce to the air, ‘I love this world, I love being here,’ and, after reading his book, I was able to do that, too. Highly recommended.” – Shelley A. Leedahl, SaskBooks Reviews

“(Ratzlaff’s) prose is so sensual, so sensitive to sound, and so layered with meanings that it often elicits a gasp of surprise, followed by delight over the rightness of the phrase. This is language to be savoured. . . It is not possible to read these short essays . . . without having one’s vision expanded.” – Edna Froese, Journal of Mennonite Studies

“This is a book of exquisite imagery, humorous observation, breathtaking honesty, and profound insight. As I read, the poignancy of each piece left me shaking my head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. In many cases, it was both . . . This ‘small’ book carries within its pages the expansiveness of the prairie sky-it changes and deepens at each look.” – Maureen Weber, Prairie Messenger

About the Author 

The most recent book by Lloyd Ratzlaff is a third collection of literary nonfiction, Bindy’s Moon (Thistledown Press). His essays are also featured in several anthologies, including Sons and Mothers: Stories From Mennonite Men, Reading the River: A Traveller’s Companion to the North Saskatchewan River, and apart: a year of pandemic poetry and prose. A former minister, counsellor, and lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan, he has taught writing classes for READ Saskatoon, the Western Development Museum, and the University of Saskatchewan Certificate of Art and Design. He was a columnist for Prairie Messenger Catholic Journal through its last nineteen years of publication. He lives in Saskatoon. 

About the Publisher 

Shadowpaw Press, founded in Regina, Saskatchewan, by award-winning author Edward Willett in 2018, publishes new work by established and emerging authors through its Premiere imprint and new editions of notable, previously published work through its Reprise imprint. For more information, contact publisher@shadowpawpress.com or visit www.shadowpawpress.com. 

Lloyd Ratzlaff is available for interviews, media appearances, speaking engagements, and/or book review requests. Please contact mickey.creativeedge@gmail.com by email or by phone at 403.464.6925

Brad C. Anderson’s searing science fiction novel Duatero available in new edition from Shadowpaw Press

Brad C. Anderson’s searing far-future science fiction novel Duatero

now available again in new edition from Shadowpaw Press

Duatero by Vancouver author Brad C. Anderson, a searing far-future science fiction novel about the struggles of an abandoned human colony to survive on a hostile alien world, is back in print in a new edition from Shadowpaw Press after being orphaned by the closing of its original publisher, Bundoran Press. 

Duatero is being released under the Shadowpaw Press Reprise imprint, which focuses on producing new editions of notable, previously published work. 

“I am thrilled that Shadowpaw Press has given my book a new life and audience,” Anderson said. “It has been great working with someone passionate about books and who wants to put them in readers’ hands.” 

“Duatero is a powerful work of science fiction that confronts issues of morality and survival head-on in a carefully thought-out and terrifying alien world,” said Edward Willett, editor and publisher of Shadowpaw Press. “It deserves to find many new readers, and I’m thrilled to be able to give it that opportunity.” 

Duatero can be bought directly from the publisher or from most online bookstores in both ebook and print and can also be ordered through any brick-and-mortar bookstore. This handy URL provides links to multiple online sources:  https://books2read.com/duatero/

 

More about the book

Majstro Falchilo Kredo has devoted his life to protecting the abandoned Earth colony of Duatero from Malamiko, the indigenous ecosystem that makes their crops fail and whose contamination turns humans into mindless monsters.

 But Malimiko is changing, becoming more dangerous, more aware, even as the ancient technology the humans use to combat it fails piece by precious piece. Kredo and his fellow soldiers must risk everything or see all they hold precious wiped away and forgotten.

 Kredo is prepared to sacrifice himself—and anyone around him—to do his duty. But what if the price demanded is even higher?

 

Praise for Duatero 

“Combines power armoured soldiers from the pages of sci-fi pulps, a world as intriguing yet bleak as Mid-World from Stephen King’s Dark Tower, and an evil as terrifying and paranoia-inducing as John Carpenter’s The Thing. A descent into the darkness of a failing world and the brutal zealotry of its defenders.” - Matt Moore, Aurora Award-winning author of It’s Not the End and Other Lies

 

About the Author

 Brad C. Anderson lives with his wife and puppy in Vancouver, Canada. He teaches undergraduate business courses at a local university and researches organizational wisdom in blithe defiance of the fact most people do not think you can put those two words in the same sentence without irony. Previously, he worked in the biotech sector, where he made drugs for a living (legally!). His stories have appeared in a variety of publications. His short story “Naïve Gods” was longlisted for a 2017 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. It was published in the anthology Lazarus Risen, which was itself nominated for an Aurora Award.

 

About the Publisher 

Shadowpaw Press, founded in Regina, Saskatchewan, by award-winning author Edward Willett in 2018, publishes new work by established and emerging authors through its Premiere imprint and new editions of notable, previously published work through its Reprise imprint. For more information about Shadowpaw Press, contact publisher@shadowpawpress.com. 

Brad C. Anderson is available for interviews, media appearances, speaking engagements, and/or book review requests. Please contact mickey.creativeedge@gmail.com by email or by phone at 403.464.6925

Shadowpaw Press releases Shapers of World Volume 2

 

Anthology from Saskatchewan publisher features short fiction by
bestselling and award-winning science fiction and fantasy authors

For the second year in a row, Regina publisher Shadowpaw Press (www.shadowpawpress.com) has produced an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories that includes works from multiple bestselling and award-winning authors from Canada, the United States, and Australia. 

Edited by Regina author Edward Willett and releasing November 2, 2021, Shapers of Worlds Volume II, a sequel to last year’s Shapers of Worlds, features new stories from Kelley Armstrong, Marie Brennan, Garth Nix, Candas Jane Dorsey, Jeremy Szal, Edward Willett, Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Lisa Foiles, Susan Forest, Matthew Hughes, Heli Kennedy, Helen Dale, Adria Laycraft, Edward Savio, Lisa Kessler, Ira Nayman, James Alan Gardner, and Tim Pratt, plus reprints from Jeffrey A. Carver, David D. Levine, Carrie Vaughn, Nancy Kress, Barbara Hambly, and S.M. Stirling. 

All of the authors were guests during the second year of Willett’s Aurora Award-winning podcast, The Worldshapers (www.theworldshapers.com). Among them are winners of and nominees for most of the world’s most prestigious awards for science fiction and fantasy literature. 

Like the “cabinets of curiosities” created by collectors of the sixteenth century, Shapers of Worlds Volume II displays a varied array of thought-provoking delights: tales of humour and sorrow, darkness and light, and hope and despair that are full of adventure, full of life, and sometimes full of regret. There are stories set in alternate histories, in possible futures near and far, and in the here-and-now, taking place on Earth, on distant planets, or in fantastic realms. All arise from the innate need of human beings to create, to imagine . . . to shape worlds. 

Willett is himself an award-winning author of more than sixty books of fantasy, science fiction, and non-fiction for readers of all ages, including eleven novels for New York’s DAW Books. His twelfth novel for DAW, the humorous space opera The Tangled Stars, will be out in 2022. His most recent release is the young adult outer-space adventure Star Song (Shadowpaw Press). In The Worldshapers podcast, Willett, a former newspaper reporter and editor and radio and television host, chats with other science fiction or fantasy authors about their creative process. 

Both Shapers of Worlds and Shapers of Worlds Volume II were Kickstarted, with each raising approximately $16,000 CDN in pledges. Like last year’s anthology, Shapers of Worlds Volume II is available through all major retailers as well as directly from Shadowpaw Press. 

Edward is available for interviews, media appearances, speaking engagements, and/or book review requests. Please contact mickey@creativeedgepublicity.com by email or by phone at 403.464.6925