“I am raw as a split fish, insides 
outside, and the salt – preserves – but 
I’m alive, don’t you see? I 
can breathe the air. The centre of a 
traitor’s punishment, guts 
everywhere. And here 
the crows are coming” 

–From This Is How It Is, by Sharon King-Campbell (Breakwater Books) 

“Schooner Stables, a syndicate of six Maritimers from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, never dreamed they’d own a harness-racing legend. But somehow, someway, the Standardbred pacer Somebeachsomewhere had entered their lives, and turned them wildly, happily, irrevocably upside down. ‘The Beach,’ as he was known to his legion of fans, loved his chow, loved his people, and most of all, loved to win.”

–From Somebeachsomewhere: A Harness Racing Legend from a One-Horse Stable, by Marjorie Simmins (Nimbus Publishing) 

“…tha e millean turas nas fheàrr a bhith nam Anna Ruadh bho Stuaghan Uaine na bhith nam Anna nach eil às àite sam bith, nach eil? […it’s a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn’t it?]” 

–From Anna Ruadh: Anne of Green Gables in Gaelic, by Lucy Maud Montgomery, translated by Mòrag Anna NicNèill (Bradan Press) 

“I collected in rain, sleet, snow and ice – once hanging over the sides of a cliff with a fellow fanatic holding onto my legs so I could grab that one piece that eluded me In the surf…I went morning, noon and night, scanning the beach as I arrived, looking for footprints…And if no footprints – oh, the joys of being the first there.”   

–From A Sea Glass Journey, by Teri Hall (Nimbus Publishing) 

“Margaret Ryall’s studio looks more like a cabinet shop than an artist’s lair. There is a table saw and a chop saw and boxes of ‘special’ wood pieces. As she says, the pieces find her, they jump out at her as she walks by. They are fragments of where she lives, fragments of Newfoundland’s past.” 

–From Time Fragments: Traces of Newfoundland the Artwork of Marget Ryall (Komatik Press)

“It’s a common misconception that eating a ketogenic diet is more expensive than the average Western diet, but that’s not the case at all. With a few easy tips, you can be eating healthy and saving much more than you ever did before.” 

–From East Coast Keto 2, by Bobbi Pike with Geoff Pike (Breakwater Books)

“It was a beautiful Caesarean. Almost textbook. Tom is proud of the little time it took him, the small incision, the tidiness of his sutures. He’s pleased with how the cow nosed the calf directly after they’d dragged it over to her. He’d seen her licking it as he trudged out of the barn with his gear.” 

–From Night Watch: The Vet Suite, by Gillian Wigmore (Invisible Publishing) 

“Despite all my misgivings, I heard myself say, ‘Yes, Roy, we’re going to write a book!’ We would tell the story of Bounty—her Nova Scotian beginnings, her voyage to Tahiti and her starring movie role. We would tell the stories of the men who sailed on her … Alzheimer’s might someday rob my old friend of those memories, but his story would not be lost.” 

–From Memories on the Bounty, by Janet Coulter Sanford (Nimbus Publishing) 

“Now you’ve got me to keep you hoppin’ and boppin’. 
Jeremy sat bolt upright. He was no longer building up sweat or shivering. 
‘Who said that? Who’s out there?’ 
Me, Jerry-boy. Jewel. 
A glorious sensation was spreading through his body.  
‘Wait—you’re inside me?’ 
Bull’s eye, Jerry-Jo. Gottit in one.” 

–From A Boy and His Soul, by John Graham-Pole (HARP Publishing) 

“Your backyard is an entire ecosystem that can be enjoyed all year long, and with a little help, it can be made into an inviting habitat for all species. The more diversity in your yard, the more diversity of wildlife will visit.” 

–From East Coast Backyard Nature Guide, by Jeffrey C Domm (Formac Publishing) 

“Now the hardest lesson / of all, from her fetal-furled body / and her jerky head that nods yes / and shakes no, a lesson that’ll become / a lodger — that you can be / in and fully of the world, yet helpless / as an amnion shadow.” 

–From “Portrait of My Mother as a Red Kangaroo” in Poisonous If Eaten Raw, by Alyda Faber (Goose Lane Editions) 

“The sea your road  
the hole in the sky 
your light to travel by
You learn to climb before you can walk  
swim before you can talk the language  
of wind that lures you to shore 
then makes you leave again” 

–From My island’s the house I sleep in at night, by Laurie Brinklow (Island Studies Press)