Shapers of Worlds Volume IV, featuring short fiction releases from Shadowpaw Press

 

Fourth entry in powerhouse anthology series features short fiction by some of today’s top writers of science fiction and fantasy and original artwork by Alberta artist Wendi Nordell 

Shapers of Worlds Volume IV, the fourth in a series of anthologies featuring short fiction by some of today’s top writers of science fiction and fantasy, releases everywhere January 23, 2024, from  Shadowpaw Press in Regina, Saskatchewan. 

Edited by Edward Willett, award-winning author of more than sixty books of science fiction, fantasy, and non-fiction for readers of all ages, the anthology was successfully Kickstarted earlier this year. Like the previous three volumes in the series, the anthology features work by authors who were guests on Willett’s Aurora Award-winning podcast, The Worldshapers (www.theworldshapers.com), which focuses on the creative process of writers of science fiction and fantasy. For the first time, the anthology also features artwork, with each story receiving a unique black-and-white illustration by Calgary-based artist Wendi Nordell. 

Shapers of Worlds Volume IV features new fiction from David Boop, Michaelbrent Collings, Roy M. Griffis, Sarah A. Hoyt, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Noah Lemelson, Edward M. Lerner, David Liss, Gail Z. Martin, Joshua Palmatier, Richard Paolinelli, Jean-Louis Trudel, James van Pelt, Garon Whited, and Edward Willett, plus reprints by James Kennedy, Mark Leslie, R.S. Mellette, and Lavie Tidhar. Among those authors are several international bestsellers, as well as winners and nominees for every major science fiction and fantasy literary award. 

From the farthest reaches of our galaxy to the cozy-yet-mysterious spaces under beds and behind sofa cushions, from mystical realms of fantasy to the here-and-now and the very near future, these nineteen authors offer readers a kaleidoscope of fantastical adventures in the company of unforgettable characters. 

The editor of a tyrannical bestselling author thinks she's finally escaped their hellish relationship when the author dies . . . but she couldn't be more wrong. A retired ghost-hunter's life takes an unexpected turn when an immensely valuable magical vase from the nineteenth century is brought to her attention. At the end of a millennia-long journey to the edge of the galaxy, a man who has lived a hundred lifetimes is reunited with his first true love in the midst of a battle for survival. Scarecrows that appear overnight on a lonely man's lawn prove to be far more than the teenagers' prank he thinks them to be. A man travels back in time to confront the attacker who destroyed his life, only to make a horrifying discovery. The Monster Under the Bed finally meets his match . . . 

Travel into the past, the present, and the future in stories set in our world, in deep space, in worlds scattered across the multiverse, and in worlds that exist only in the imagination. 

An unforgettable journey awaits. All you have to do is turn the page. 

Praise for Shapers of Worlds Volume IV 

“One of the most overall enjoyable anthologies I have had the pleasure of reading . . . You are in for a wild ride from one end of the universe to the depths of hell, and I think that the editor says it best in his introduction: this collection is like a grand feast, made of many varied splendid ingredients, and you are quite sure to leave happy and satisfied when you are done . . . Overall, I highly recommend this fourth volume of Shapers of Worlds.” – Tangent Online

About the editor 

EDWARD WILLETT is the Aurora Award-winning author of more than sixty books of science fiction, fantasy, and non-fiction for readers of all ages, including twelve novels for New York’s DAW Books. A past president of SF Canada, he is currently vice-president of SaskBooks, the professional association of publishers in Saskatchewan. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan. 

About the artist 

WENDI NORDELL has been drawing for as long as she could hold a pencil. It has always been a favourite pastime and eventually became an occasional job. While her three children were growing up, she painted many murals, including the pediatrics wing in a hospital, a school entrance, and in many homes. She also attended festivals and craft shows, selling hand-drawn gift cards, bookmarks, and illustrations. Now that her children are grown, she has pursued an illustration career, illustrating a dozen books in the last five years, mostly for children, but also including Edward Willett's science-fiction and fantasy poetry collection I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust. Recently, she returned to the Alberta University of the Arts, pursuing a degree in illustration. 

About Shadowpaw Press 

Shadowpaw Press was founded in 2018 by Edward Willett. A member of Literary Press Group (Canada) and the Association of Canadian Publishers, Shadowpaw Press publishes an eclectic selection of books by both new and established authors, including adult fiction, young adult fiction, children’s books, non-fiction, and anthologies. In addition, Shadowpaw Press publishes new editions of notable, previously published books in any genre under the Shadowpaw Press Reprise imprint.

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For more information:

Edward Willett

ewillett@sasktel.net

306-536-5421

www.edwardwillett.com

www.shadowpawpress.com

www.theworldshapers.com

Nir Yaniv’s rollicking, madcap military sci-fi satire The Good Soldier

 Catch-22 meets Starship Troopers in Nir Yaniv’s rollicking,

madcap military sci-fi satire The Good Soldier

The Good Soldier by Nir Yaniv, a rollicking, madcap military sci-fi satire that’s been described as “M*A*S*H in outer space” and “Catch-22 meets Starship Troopers,” is the latest adult science fiction novel published by Regina, Saskatchewan’s Shadowpaw Press.

As U.K author and critic Adam Roberts (Jack Glass) puts it, The Good Soldier is “a rattling, SFnal updating of The Good Soldier Švejk via Starship Troopers (as it might be: Švejkship Troopers): funny, pointed, readable, a subversive depiction of the futility of war and a satire on the perennial logic of the military mind and the structures of the army.” It is also, he adds, “highly recommended.”

As The Good Soldier begins, The Imperial Navy has long been at war. It is a well-oiled machine, a mighty galactic power in which nothing can go wrong.

Enter Pre-Private Joseph Fux, self-proclaimed Idiot, Second Class.

When Fux arrives on board the light frigate UPS Spitz, things immediately begin to go wrong. It’s not Fux’s fault. It never is. Accidents just happen when he’s around, despite the best intentions.

And as the always-cheerful Fux bungles his way through one job after another, he throws the whole ship and its orderly crew into chaos. No one is left unscathed: not the responsible and lonely Lt. Lipton, grieving for his lost love; not the mercilessly logical Doctor Nightingale, who may or may not be Lipton’s current romantic interest; not the overzealous Ensign Berseker, or the pompous political officer, Commander Kapust. Not even the hidden, monstrous Captain.

Knowingly or not, Fux is an agent of resistance, his blind stupidity the only sane response to the insanity of war. Something’s gotta give, and the tiny spanner-in-the-works that is Fux threatens at last to destroy the entire machinery of the Galactic Empire . . .

More praise for The Good Soldier

“In this amiable satire of the gung-ho heroics of military sci-fi, Yaniv (coauthor of The Tel Aviv Dossier) sets a seeming simpleton against an immense empire, and the contest is hardly fair . . . (A)n amusing alternative to the usual run of martial marvels and battle-tested warriors. Military SF fans will enjoy this gentle roasting.” – Publishers Weekly

“Drawing on a tradition of anti-war fiction and his own military experience, Nir Yaniv meshes together classical American gung-ho SF with the delightful absurdism of European literature to create an unforgettable far-future fable for our times. Think M.A.S.H. in space, and you’ll come closest to capturing the spirit of The Good Soldier, but you’ll have to enmesh yourself in the (mis)adventures of Idiot-Second-Class Fux and company of the good ship Spitz to find out for yourself. This is one explosive novel you do not want to miss!” – Lavie Tidhar, award-winning author of Central Station and Neom

“A madcap dystopian satire that shoulders its way into the ranks of Bill the Galactic Hero and Catch-22, then stands sloppily at attention as it smirks in the face of an apoplectic political officer.” – Alex Shvartsman, Award-Winning Author of The Middling Affliction and Eridani’s Crown

About the author 

NIR YANIV (niryaniv.com) is an Israeli-born multidisciplinary artist living in Los Angeles. He’s an author, a musician, an illustrator, and a filmmaker. He founded Israel’s first online science fiction magazine and served as its chief editor for ten years, after which he moved on to editing a printed genre magazine. He collaborated with World Fantasy Award-winning author Lavie Tidhar on two novels, including the “deranged sci-fi extravaganza” (per The Jewish Quarterly) The Tel Aviv Dossier, and his English- language collection The Love Machine & Other Contraptions was published by Infinity Plus in 2012.His most recent Hebrew novel, King of Jerusalem, was published in Israel in 2019. His short stories have appeared in Weird Tales, Apex, and ChiZine, among others. 

Nir’s musical career includes soundtracks for film, dance shows, and theatre. His most recent work is the voice-and-drums animated album The Voice Remains (LifeArt Music, 2021). Nir has also directed several short films and music videos, both live-action and animated. 

About Shadowpaw Press 

Shadowpaw Press was founded in 2018 by Edward Willett. A member of Literary Press Group (Canada) and the Association of Canadian Publishers, Shadowpaw Press publishes an eclectic selection of books by both new and established authors, including adult fiction, young adult fiction, children’s books, non-fiction, and anthologies. In addition, Shadowpaw Press publishes new editions of notable, previously published books in any genre under the Shadowpaw Press Reprise imprint.

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For more information:

Edward Willett

ewillett@sasktel.net

306-536-5421

www.edwardwillett.com

www.shadowpawpress.com

www.theworldshapers.com

Mark Morton’s debut YA novel, The Headmasters, from Shadowpaw Press February 6 2024

 

Mark Morton’s debut YA novel, The Headmasters, called “a brilliant science-fiction debut”
by Robert J. Sawyer, releases February 6 from Shadowpaw Press

 

Noted Canadian non-fiction author and long-time CBC columnist Mark Morton makes his debut as a novelist with The Headmasters, coming February 6 from Shadowpaw Press; a gripping, provocative post-apocalyptic dystopian young adult tale that asks the question, “How do you learn from the past if there isn’t one?”

Sixty years ago as The Headmasters opens, something awful happened. Something that killed everyone except the people at Blue Ring, a research facility in northern Ontario. Something that caused the Headmasters to appear. But young Maple doesn’t know what is was. Because talking about the past is forbidden.

Everyone at Blue Ring has a Headmaster. They sink their sinewy coils into your skull and control you, using your body for backbreaking toil and your mind to communicate with each other.

When someone dies, their Headmaster transfers to someone new. But so do the dead person’s memories, and if one of those memories surfaces in the new host’s mind, their brain breaks. That’s why talking about the past is forbidden.

Maple hates this world where the past can’t exist and the future promises only more suffering. And she hates the Headmasters for making it that way. But she doesn’t know how to fight them – until memories start to surface in her mind from someone who long ago came close to defeating the Headmasters.

But whose memories are they? Why aren’t they harming her? And how can she use them to defeat the Headmasters? Maple has to find the answers herself, unable to tell anyone what she’s experiencing or planning—not even Thorn, the young man she’s falling in love with.

Thorn, who has some forbidden secrets of his own . . .

Praise for The Headmasters 

“Mark Morton’s The Headmasters is a brilliant science-fiction debut from one of Canada’s best-loved nonfiction writers. This compelling YA novel is a spot-on updating of Robert A. Heinlein’s classic The Puppet Masters for the new millennium, with intricate world-building, a great science-fiction puzzle, and — ironic for a novel about suppressed memories — a main character you’ll never forget. I loved it.” — Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of The Downloaded

About the author 

MARK MORTON (markmorton.ca)i s also the author of four nonfiction titles: Cupboard Love: A Dictionary of Culinary Curiosities (nominated for a Julia Child Award and to be reissued soon in a new edition from Shadowpaw Press Reprise); The End: Closing Words for a Millennium (winner of the Alexander Isbister Award for nonfiction); The Lover’s Tongue: A Merry Romp Through the Language of Love and Sex (republished in the UK as Dirty Words), and Cooking with Shakespeare. He’s also written more than fifty columns for Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture (University of California Press) and has written and broadcast more than a hundred columns about language and culture for CBC Radio. Mark has a PhD in sixteenth-century literature from the University of Toronto and has taught at several universities in France and Canada. He currently works at the University of Waterloo. He and his wife, Melanie Cameron, (also an author) have four children, three dogs, one rabbit, and no time. 

About Shadowpaw Press

Shadowpaw Press was founded in 2018 by Edward Willett. A member of Literary Press Group (Canada) and the Association of Canadian Publishers, Shadowpaw Press publishes an eclectic selection of books by both new and established authors, including adult fiction, young adult fiction, children’s books, non-fiction, and anthologies. In addition, Shadowpaw Press publishes new editions of notable, previously published books in any genre under the Shadowpaw Press Reprise imprint.

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For more information:

Edward Willett

ewillett@sasktel.net

306-536-5421

www.edwardwillett.com

www.shadowpawpress.com

www.theworldshapers.com

On the thirtieth anniversary of “The War in the Woods,” a new memoir recalls Clayoquot Sound tree faller Bruce Hornidge’s point of view.

 

On the thirtieth anniversary of  “The War in the Woods,”

a new memoir recalls events from a Clayoquot Sound tree faller’s point of view

 

Thirty years after the War in the Woods in Clayoquot Sound, career tree faller Bruce Hornidge’s memoir of events, Loggerheads, will be published on October  17, 2023, by Regina’s, Saskatchewan’s Endless Sky Books. Book-launch events are planned for Port Alberni, Ucluelet, and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island from October 25 to 30. 

After more than two decades harvesting in the beauty of the forest, Hornidge was “loggershamed” as a “tree-killer” and faced soul-searing losses of identity and livelihood, part of the human fallout of the inevitable move away from a resource-based economy. Loggerheads is written from the unique, sometimes humorous, and even irreverent point of view of one of the many loggers in Ucluelet and Tofino whose forestry careers were cut short on the other side of the demonstrators’ picket lines and government and company doublespeak. 

“In a three-week window, decades ago, I produced the bulk of this book in the form of a paper called ‘The Nightmare.’ My goal was a story that is truthful, personal, and encompasses many of the issues in this complex problem,” Hornidge says. “Three decades after The War of the Woods, we know what happened, and we’ve been told why. There’s a lot we were never told.” 

Hornidge adds that the logging industry isn’t the only resource-based industry that has been subjected to shaming. “By sharing my story as an ex-Clayoquot Sound forest worker, I hope to help people understand the issues surrounding resource-based industries from a broader perspective than that spun by the media, where those opposed to logging are painted as the brave biblical David versus the Goliath of us ‘evil tree-killers,’” he said.

Hornidge acknowledges the logging industry wasn’t blameless. “A careless approach was adopted by many as the forestry industry picked up speed during what was considered an era of largely unrestricted logging. Some of those true stories can be found in this book’s pages. 

“For a decade, the issue of forestland use in British Columbia raged like a forest fire. Starting small, it generated smoke and mirrors and a world media hype that came to hang like a stalled hurricane over a tiny, beautiful corner of the world known as Clayoquot Sound—and the largest act of civil disobedience in Canada to that date. It was a storm that just wouldn’t quit,” Hornidge writes in the opening pages of Loggerheads. “In that brief, tangled era, with my livelihood hanging in the balance, the pressures of life built to such a point that I believed either I’d have a mental breakdown or my emotions would break loose and lash out, with real consequences.” 

Raw emotions of distrust and abandonment welled up, and, in his distress, Hornidge even toyed briefly with twisted ideas of how he could give the cause its “fifteen minutes of fame” on the world stage. “Thank goodness cooler heads prevailed.” 

Hornidge concludes there is hypocrisy evident in both the anti-resource utilization camp and those in favour of resource-based industry. “Those who live in wood houses shouldn’t throw stones,” he says with a smile. 

Loggerheads received a warm review from Bill Arnott, author of the Gone Viking series and A Season on Vancouver Island. “Part treatise, part manual, part eco-memoir, Bruce Hornidge’s Loggerheads is a timely, timeless read for lovers of trees. Richly shared in crisp prose, this book stands as a sentinel evergreen to the nature and industry our forests provide,” Arnott says.

 Loggerheads is available from most bookstores, online and off. It can also be purchased directly from Endless Sky Books at www.endless-sky-books.com or Shadowpaw Press at www.shadowpawpress.com.

About the Author 

Bruce Edward Hornidge was born in 1948 in Belleville, Ontario, an Air Force brat growing up where his father was stationed in Gimli, Manitoba, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Bruce finished school in 1967, joining his brother Brian at MacMillan Bloedel’s Kennedy Lake logging division at Ucluelet on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. He was married on a very unusual snowy day in March 1973 and, with his wife, Minnie, raised two boys and a girl. He felled trees for twenty-six years. After losing his job in 1997, he became a security guard in Campbell River, Vancouver, and Vanderhoof, British Columbia. Bruce and his wife, now the Rev. Minnie Hornidge, live in Glen Williams, Ontario. There, Bruce gardens and knits. And writes. 

About the Publisher

Endless Sky Books was founded by award-winning author and editor Edward Willett in 2023. For more information, contact publisher@endless-sky-books.com or visit www.endless-sky-books.com.

Bruce Hornidge is available for interviews, media appearances, and speaking engagements. Please contact mickey.creativeedge@gmail.com by email or by phone at 403.464.6925

Award-winning writer Edward Willett crowdfunding fourth anthology featuring major science fiction and fantasy authors

 

Award-winning writer Edward Willett crowdfunding fourth anthology

featuring major science fiction and fantasy authors

 

Edward Willett, Saskatchewan-based award-winning author of more than sixty books of science fiction, fantasy, and non-fiction for readers of all ages, is launching a Kickstarter campaign on March 14, 2023, to fund the fourth annual anthology featuring some of the top writers of science fiction and fantasy working today, all of whom were guests on his Aurora Award-winning podcast, The Worldshapers (www.theworldshapers.com). 

Shapers of Worlds Volume IV will feature new fiction from David Boop, Michaelbrent Collings, Roy M. Griffis, Sarah A. Hoyt, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Noah Lemelson, Mark Leslie Lefebvre, Edward M. Lerner, David Liss, Gail Z. Martin, Joshua Palmatier, Richard Paolinelli, Jean-Louis Trudel, James van Pelt, Garon Whited, and Edward Willett, plus reprints by James Kennedy, R.S. Mellette, and Lavie Tidhar. Among those authors are several international bestsellers, as well as winners and nominees for every major science fiction and fantasy literary award. 

All of the authors were guests during the fourth year of The Worldshapers, where Willett interviews other science fiction and fantasy authors about their creative process. 

Backers' rewards offered by the authors include numerous e-books, signed paperback and hardcover books, Tuckerizations (a backer’s name used as a character name), commissioned artwork, one-on-one writing/publishing consultations, audiobooks, opportunities for online chats with authors, short-story critiques, and more. 

The Kickstarter campaign can be found at  kickstarter.com/projects/edwardwillett/shapers-of-worlds-volume-iv/. 

The campaign goal is $12,000 CDN. Most of those funds will go to pay the authors, with the rest going to reward fulfillment, primarily the editing, layout, and printing of the book, which will be published this fall in both ebook and trade paperback formats by Willett’s publishing company, Shadowpaw Press (www.shadowpawpress.com). This year, there’s a special stretch goal: once the campaign reaches $17,000, $5,000 over the goal, the anthology will be illustrated, with a new black-and-white drawing for each story from Calgary, Alberta artist Wendi Nordell, who has illustrated numerous books for regional publishers including Edward Willett’s science-fiction and fantasy poetry collection, I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust. 

The Worldshapers podcast continues, and assuming Shapers of Worlds Volume IV funds this year, there’ll be a campaign to fund the fifth volume in the series next year.

 

For more information:

Edward Willett

ewillett@sasktel.net

306-536-5421

www.edwardwillett.com

www.shadowpawpress.com

www.theworldshapers.com

 

Wounded Hearts Take A Chance is a warm-hearted collection of poetry by Debbie Quigley

 

Wounded Hearts Take A Chance is a warm-hearted collection of poetry about taking a second chance on love after heartbreak, written by a retired healthcare worker.

Wounded Hearts Take A Chance by Ontario author Debbie Quigley, a collection of warm-hearted poems about learning to love again after betrayal and heartache, is out now from Regina publisher Endless Sky Books.

“I wrote Wounded Hearts Take A Chance to simply give women hope about the possibility of loving again,” says Debbie Quigley. “I was so happy to have it published, once again sharing my whisper-art poetry. Endless Sky has been simply amazing, guiding me and working with me on this heartfelt-project.”

“I’m delighted to be able to publish this charming little collection of heart-warming poems,” says Edward Willett, editor and publisher of Endless Sky Books. “I hope it finds readers for its gentle message of hope.”

Wounded Hearts Take A Chance can be ordered through most bookstores, online or off. It can also be purchased directly from Endless Sky Books at www.endless-sky-books.com.

More about the book

 “It all started one fine summer’s day when a first-glance attraction walked into her yard . . .”

This little book takes you along the poetic, romantic path of a woman opening her broken heart to the possibility of loving again.

To do so, she must tear down the protective walls of aloneness she has built around herself, walls of safety thrown up in the wake of infidelity and betrayal.

Letting a man into her heart again, daring to trust and to feel love and passion once more, opening herself to the risk of suffering more pain, is a big leap . . . but it’s one worth taking, and one she’ll never regret.https://shadowpawpress.com/product/backwater-mystic-blues/. 

About the Author

Debbie Quigley, author of Wounded Hearts Take A Chance, was born in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. She is also the author of the poetry collection Wind Whispers. A retired healthcare worker, she lives in a small hamlet surrounded by nature and wildlife. She loves to garden. Debbie’s “whisper-art” poetry is simple and real, telling a story. She has contributed to Spiritual Writers Network publications, and her poetry can also be found on Author’s Den.

About the Publisher

Endless Sky Books is a book-publishing company founded by award-winning author and editor Edward Willett in 2023. For more information, contact publisher@endless-sky-books.com or visit www.endless-sky-books.com. 

Debbie Quigley 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

Backwater Mystic Blues, a collection of literary essays by Lloyd Ratzlaff published by Shadowpaw Press

 

Backwater Mystic Blues, the second acclaimed collection of literary essays by noted Saskatchewan author Lloyd Ratzlaff, out in new editions from Shadowpaw Press 

Backwater Mystic Blues, the second acclaimed collection of essays reflecting on nature, spirituality, and growing up on the prairies 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 also recently republished Ratzlaff’s first collection of essays, The Crow Who Tampered With Time. 

“Many thanks to Shadowpaw Press for publishing new editions of Backwater Mystic Blues and The Crow Who Tampered With Time,” Ratzlaff says. “These books first confirmed me as a writer, The Crow a tribute to an urban park which became my sanctuary during a period of loss, and Backwater a tribute to my home village and its countryside. I’m delighted and more than grateful to Shadowpaw for giving them another life and offering them to new circles of readers.” 

“As with Lloyd’s previous collection, each essay in Backwater Mystic Blues sparkles, provoking nostalgia, smiles, introspection, and reflection,” says Edward Willett, editor and publisher of Shadowpaw Press. “I’m excited to release this new edition of Backwater Mystic Blues, and I hope it will find many new readers who will enjoy it as much as I did.” 

Backwater Mystic Blues can be ordered through most bookstores, online or off. It can also be purchased directly from Shadowpaw Press at https://shadowpawpress.com/product/backwater-mystic-blues/. 

More about the book

Shortlisted for the Non-Fiction Book Award and Saskatoon Book Award,

2006 Saskatchewan Book Awards 

In this second suite of intimate essays, Lloyd Ratzlaff summons the secret hiding spots, makeshift rafts, and uncomplicated childhood joys that lay the foundations for adult philosophy. In tune with the vivid simplicities of the sensuous world and the honour of unassuming people, Ratzlaff explores the disguises shaped by religion, family, and memory as he recreates the discovery and illumination that his past has offered. 

Critical praise 

“Backwater Mystic Blues is an extended aide memoire of . . . everyday objects and gestures, retrieved from memory and made to live again in a phosphorescent prose that ‘restores the world to word’ as he writes and whistles in the dark.” – Myrna Kostash 

“The essays sing the blues, touching readers as music does, not through linear development or logical exposition but through scenes that resonate emotionally: past reverberates with present and ordinary stuff is transposed into mystical keys . . .In this second instalment of reflective, irreverent, worshipful essays, Ratzlaff bends our usual angles of vision and sheds light and colour on religious experiences of one kind or another.” – Edna Froese, Journal of Mennonite Studies 

“The drag of the mundane and the mixed rapture/terror of the divine both find expression—the mundane made keenly relevant and the divine fully believable and grounded . . . Consider it narrative poetry . . . a series of intimate snapshots . . . and find the soul of a poet and a friend within its pages.” — Martin van Woudenberg, Pacific Rim Review of Books

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

Dollybird, WILLA Award-winning historical novel by Anne Lazurko is back in print from Shadowpaw Press

 

Dollybird, WILLA Award-winning historical novel by Glengarry Book Prize finalist
Anne Lazurko (What is Written on the Tongue) back in print from  Shadowpaw Press

 

Dollybird, the WILLA Literary Award-winning first historical novel by Anne Lazurko, whose latest book, What is Written on the Tongue (ECW Press), was a finalist for the 2022 Glengarry Book Prize, now has a new home with Shadowpaw Press Reprise, which publishes new editions of notable, previously published work. 

“I am so grateful to have Dollybird given a new life by Shadowpaw Press,” says Lazurko. “To have these characters and this story available to new readers is simply a gift; to me as an author and, hopefully, to those readers who can now find it in the format of their choice.” 

“I’m thrilled to be able to make Dollybird available to new readers,” says Edward Willett, editor and publisher of Shadowpaw Press. “This book’s complex, enthralling characters and sharply observed setting in the early homesteading years of Saskatchewan linger with you long after you’ve finished reading.” 

Dollybird is available for order through most bookstores, online or off. It can also be purchased directly from Shadowpaw Press at shadowpawpress.com/product/dollybird. 

More about the book 

Winner: 2014 WILLA Literary Award for historical fiction

Shortlisted: 2014 Fiction Award, Saskatchewan Book Awards 

Twenty-year-old Moira, the daughter of a Newfoundland doctor, dreams of becoming a doctor herself; but when she becomes pregnant out of wedlock, she is banished to the bleak landscape of southern Saskatchewan in 1906. There, she must come to terms with her predicament, her pioneer environment, and her employment as a “dollybird,” a term applied to women who might be housekeepers, whores—or both. A saga of birth, death, and the violent potential of both men and the elements, Dollybird explores the small mercies that mean more than they should under a vast prairie sky that waits, not so quietly, for people to fail. 

Critical praise 

“An absolutely stunning novel . . . I’ve reviewed some 4,000 books for the Sun-Times in the past 20 years; only a few times did something new glue me like this one. Dollybird. Very nice.” - Andrew Armitage, Book Editor for The Sun-Times

 

“Dollybird is a page-turner. Every character is fully realized, crippled by pains specific and universal. The writing is shot through with poetry, even the landscape is rendered harsh and graceful in the same moment . . . Such a cast of characters- everyone steps off the page, even those we only catch a glimpse of . . . Dollybird covered me in dust and mud; the pages are intoned with every kind of love: the absent, the lost, the yearning, the found. Read Dollybird.” - Katherine Lawrence, award winning writer and poet (author of Stay)

 

“Dollybird explores human relationships: parents and children, men and women, siblings and female friends, and how these connections are further complicated in the face of an indifferent, unpredictable natural environment . . . Lazurko’s straightforward prose transports the reader to early 20th-century Canada . . . Her characters are well-developed, flawed and frightened” - Laurie Glenn Norris for the Telegraph-Journal

 

“The novel’s strength lies in its glimpses into not only the hardship but also the tight sense of community that marked pioneering men and women . . . Lazurko’s title speaks to the confining roles women were permitted to have as the West was ‘'settled’ and to the difficulties women faced when they, like Moira, tried to resist them.” –The Coastal Spectator

About the Author

Anne Lazurko’s second novel, What is Written on the Tongue, was released in the spring of 2022 by ECW Press, and was shortlisted for the 2022 Glengarry Book Award. A graduate of the Humber Creative Writing Program, Anne has had short fiction and poetry published in literary magazines and anthologies and is active in the prairie writing community as mentor, editor, and teacher. She writes from her farm near Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Her website is annelazurko.com.

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. 

Anne Lazurko 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

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

Anthology from Saskatchewan publisher Shadowpaw Press features science fiction and fantasy authors

 

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

 

For the third 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, Shapers of World Volume III features new new fiction from Griffin Barber, Gerald Brandt, Miles Cameron, Sebastien de Castell, Kristi Charish, David Ebenbach, Mark Everglade and Joseph Hurtgen, Frank J. Fleming, Violette Malan, Anna Mocikat, James Morrow, Jess E. Owen, Robert Penner, Cat Rambo, K.M. Rice, and Edward Willett, new poetry by Jane Yolen, and previously published stories by Cory Doctorow, K. Eason, Walter Jon Williams, and F. Paul Wilson. 

All of the authors were guests during the third 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. 

From outer space to inner space, from realms of magic to the here-and-now, from the distant past to the far future, the twenty-one featured authors take readers on ncredible adventures in the company of unforgettable characters. A pampered, overweight cat from the present saves the world from alien invasion in Ancient Egypt. A musician whose special horn helped bring down the walls of Jericho is fated to bring down walls again and again throughout history. A house ghost is troubled by a new owner who proves unhauntable. Robots programmed to love humanity take the only action they can to save us from ourselves. A CDC agent is prepared to do whatever it takes to prevent a novel pathogen from spreading . . . 

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, just came out in ebook and audiobook formats. 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.

Shapers of Worlds Volume III, like the previous two volumes, was Kickstarted, raising more than $16,000 CDN in pledges. It 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.creativeedge@gmail.com by email or by phone at 403.464.6925