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mayann francisBefore the Honourable Mayann Francis was the Director and CEO of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, provincial ombudsman, and the 31st Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, she was a young girl taking the train from Cape Breton to the Big Apple. In her first children’s book, Mayann’s Train Ride, illustrated by Tamara Thiebeaux-Heikalo, Francis writes about the excitement of a nine-year-old girl exploring the world around her and learning valuable lessons along the way.

Atlantic Books Today: What do you consider your best quality?

I care about people. I do my best to always practice the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

A quality you desire in a partner:

I value a partner who is compassionate and caring. And that he knows how to cook.

What do you appreciate most about your friends?

My true friends are loyal, intelligent, kind, witty and supportive. We enjoy a good laugh.

Your worst quality:

I can be impatient.

Your favourite occupation:

I am in awe of writers who have the ability to take the reader on a roller coaster of emotions by the power and force of the written word.

What is your idea of happiness?Mayann's Train Ride

Eating a bag of Lay’s potato chips every night and not worrying about clogged arteries or high cholesterol.

Your idea of misery:

Sitting next to someone on a fully booked airplane who believes they should share their terrible cold with you.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?

I would like to be Rosemary Barton, on CBC’s Power and Politics.

Where would you most like to live?

When I was a child I couldn’t wait for the first fall of snow. Now I can’t wait for the snow to melt. My joints would love a warm climate. Antigua, my mom’s birthplace, would be ideal.

Favourite colour:

I don’t think I have a favourite colour. I am drawn to purple, red, black, yellow, white and pale blue.

Favourite animal:

I love cats. My beloved cat Angel died in June 2015. We had many cats when I was a child. We also had a few dogs – but cats rule.

 Your favourite poet(s):

Maya Angelou, George Elliott Clarke and William Shakespeare

Favourite author(s):

Lawrence Hill and Cecil Foster

Your favourite fictional heroes:

Aminata, the central character in The Book of Negroes, was a strong, intelligent, courageous and determined woman. Those are qualities I admire.

Your real life heroes:

My friend and mentor Beverly Mascoll who at the age of 59 died from breast cancer. She was a successful entrepreneur who believed in social justice and giving back to community. Also Viola Desmond, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Pope Francis, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, Rev. Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Your favourite food & drink:

On the rare occasions when I eat meat, I enjoy a delicious Oxtail dinner. I love salmon and my brother-in-law’s Barbadian hot and spicy fishcakes. Martinis made by Paddy are good. But my favourite drink is white cranberry juice, straight up.

What is your greatest fear?

My greatest fear is not knowing who I am.

A natural talent you’d like to possess:

I wish I had the natural ability to learn and speak many languages.

How you want to die:

As a baby boomer, I must admit I think about the final destination none of us can avoid. How I want to get there today might be different from how I want to arrive there tomorrow.   One thing I do know, I want to be ready just like the Old Negro Spiritual says, “I want to be ready, my Lord, to walk in Jerusalem, just like John.”

Your present state of mind:

I attended the Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 directed by Paul Halley today (April 17, 2016). The noise and chatter in my mind was replaced by the solemn music of the Kings Chapel Choir. I am at peace. I can hear the still small voice. How beautiful.

Favourite or personal motto:

Never allow anyone or anything to break your spirit.

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Bill Rowe photo smallBill Rowe has had many titles — Rhodes Scholar, Member of the Newfoundland House of Assembly, lawyer, public affairs commentator, and bestselling author. His latest book, The True Confessions of a Badly Misunderstood Dog, takes a warm and humorous look at the inner lives of a destined-for-greatness dog named Durf and his human and feline housemates.

ABT: What do you consider your best quality?

Bill Rowe: Skepticism, backed by a built-in, hypersensitive BS detector.

A quality you desire in a partner:

Acute observation, revealed in droll wit.

What do you appreciate most about your friends?

Not calling me at 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning with the invitation, “Hey, old buddy, how about giving me a hand moving some furniture?”

Your worst quality:

Entertaining still a remnant of tolerance for self-righteous morons.

Your favourite occupation:

My long-term memory is so good that I can remember when my favourite occupation was being physically active in bed. Now it’s lying quietly in bed, mentally writing my next book. This may not be everybody’s notion of progress.

What is your idea of happiness?

The needy pursuit of “happiness” is a mug’s game. Happiness is elusive and, even if caught, evanescent. Tackling some difficult, creative task, and making progress towards the satisfaction of doing it well, seems better.

Your idea of misery:

Being trapped too long in a social situation requiring polite restraint towards self-righteous morons.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?

To get some answers. How could he write so many works of genius in such a short period, all the while becoming rich in business and property? Did he even suspect he was the greatest writer of all time? Did he have syphilis, and was that what killed him in the prime of life at 52? Why did his “personality” seem to make relatively little impact on his own era, compared with, say, Oscar Wilde’s or Earnest Hemingway’s on theirs? Was it because he hoarded his wisdom, wit, insight, and charisma entirely for the blank page in front of him? And so forth.

Where you would most like to live?

Out here, in the middle of the North Atlantic, is good. Sometimes, though, when a St. John’s day in July produces winter temperatures, it almost seems too remarkable a co-incidence that the place where I happened to grow up also happens to be the best place on earth to live. Then I have random thoughts: the South of France would be good, too.

Favourite colour:True Confessions of a Badly Misunderstood Dog Bill Rowe

The subtly varicoloured greens of new leaves in spring.

Favourite Animal:

Domesticated: the Labrador retriever of The True Confessions of a Badly Misunderstood Dog. Wild: “Tyger tyger, burning bright…”

Your favourite poet(s):

Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Wyatt, William Blake, Thomas Hardy, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes.

Favourite author(s):

William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, John Updike, Cormac McCarthy.

Your favourite fictional heroes:

Resourceful Odysseus, the man of twists and turns. And Rosalind in As You Like it: she’s so wise and funny she ranks as one of the finest.

Your real life heroes:

Queen Elizabeth I, William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Your favourite food & drink:

Bouillabaisse with Chablis or Provençal rosé, followed by Sauterne, preferably Chateau d’Yquem, if someone with the money to match his hedonism is buying.

What is your greatest fear?

That Schopenhauer’s answer was right when someone asked him where we go when we die. He replied that you go to wherever you were before you were born. Is he suggesting that our subjective selves will be lurking somewhere just waiting for the chance to do this all over again? Bloodcurdling.

A natural talent you’d like to possess:

To perform brilliantly in the highest of the arts: music.

How you want to die:

Slowly, for the first 85 years, and then very quickly. Maybe after a nice, strong soporific during a trip to Switzerland.

Your present state of mind:

Contented indifference regarding self, reliably alternating with stark anxiety for others.

Favourite or personal motto:

Innocens non timidus, which can translate to: “Innocent not fearful.” Whatever the hell that means. But it sounds ominous, like the plea of someone “wrongfully” accused. I’m stuck with it, though. It’s the motto of my ancestral gang, one of whom claimed, on being arrested later, that he didn’t really comprehend what he was doing when he signed the death warrant of King Charles the First.

The True Confessions of a Badly Misunderstood Dog
by Bill Rowe
$19.95, paperback, 224 pp.
Flanker Press, 2015

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Berni StapletonFor 25 years, actor, playwright and author Berni Stapleton has delighted audiences with her unique take on Newfoundland and Labrador’s heritage. She’s worn the titles of artistic director at the Grand Bank Regional Theatre Festival and playwright in residence at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Her latest book, This is the Cat (Creative Book Publishers), is a darkly humorous tale that examines the foibles and failures of memory through the lens of one woman’s life.

What do you consider your best quality?

Embracing my lesser qualities.

A quality you desire in a partner:

Companionable with silence, fresh breath, fresh humour. Must like reading, me and cats, my cats in particular. Must play well with others, enjoy long meandering walks and likewise conversations. I’m listing more than one quality in case he is reading this so he will recognize himself and get in touch with me.

What do you appreciate most about your friends?

They have greater and lesser qualities that are compatible with mine, they love me no matter what, they are usually smarter, wittier and more accomplished than me, thusly constantly massively yet annoyingly inspiring.

Your worst quality:

I am a master procrastinator. I would win the procrastinating Olympics except I’d miss the entry deadline. I can procrastinate procrastinating.

Your favourite occupation:

Reading while in the bathtub. I wish that could be my job.

What is your idea of happiness?

Oh my God, that moment when the procrastinating is about done and the time has come, the walrus said, and then the writing commences.

Your idea of misery:

Trapped in small talk at a party wearing a dress that makes me feel fat. Trapped in small talk anywhere. I prefer tiny talk. No talk. Listening.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?

I would be my truest self, the one who hides deep within.

Where you would most like to live?

I would most like to live in a small house on a hill in Italy with a bathtub for reading in every room, a vineyard to one side, the ocean on the other, a garden for the cats on the other, and with a chef who comes to cook and never makes any small talk.

Favourite colour:

I love riots of colours.

This is the CatFavourite animal:

I love cats because they are beautiful, mysterious, silly, natural-born killers.

Your favourite poet(s):

I love Agnes Walsh, most especially Going Around With Bachelors.

Favourite author(s):

I adore Kathleen Winter, Lisa Moore, Alice Munro, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jean Rhys and Stephen King.

Your favourite fictional heroes:

Cleopatra (as played by Elizabeth Taylor) and Morgaine le Fay.

 Your real life heroes:

My mother and my son.

Your favourite food & drink:

Red wine and any sort of food that compliments the wine.

What is your greatest fear?

That all my tiny fears will one day morph into a giant fear.

A natural talent you’d like to possess: 

I wish I could speak Italian.

How you want to die:

Older than the oldest, in my right mind, in my own bed, in the house described above, lying next to the fellow described above.

Your present state of mind:

I am filled with hope.

Favourite or personal motto:

So Hum. I am.

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Cover FINAL.inddBobbi French was born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. She was a practicing psychiatrist working with children and adolescents until she ran away to France with her husband.

Her new book, Finding Me In France (Creative Book Publishing, 2012), chronicles her awkward, a perplexing, yet always entertaining journey of discovery and an experience of a lifetime living abroad. Bobbie also blogs about her big French adventure at www.findingmeinfrance.com.

What do you consider your best quality?

Compassion.

A quality you desire in a partner:

Above average cooking ability.

What do you appreciate most about your friends?

Unconditional support and enthusiastic cheer-leading.

Your worst quality:

Impatience.

Your favourite occupation:

Reading. Listening to music is a close second.

Finding-Me-In-France-Bobbi-French-Creative.jpgWhat is your idea of happiness?

Living a life on my own terms and answering only to myself, big things like that, but also small, everyday things—the day I know for sure that spring has arrived, starting a book and being hooked by the end of the first page, a warm cookie, all the lovely minutiae life has to offer.

Your idea of misery:

Living in a country engaged in or ravaged by war or living under an oppressive regime and, of course, having anything waxed.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?

Anyone who can speak fluent French.


Where you would most like to live?

Everywhere

Favourite colour:

I tend to have favourite colour combinations like charcoal grey and apple green.

Favourite animal:

I like all animals but lately I’m loving elephants. I assume it’s due to the solidarity I now feel with grey, wrinkled creatures.

Your favourite poet(s):

Pablo Neruda and Dr. Seuss.

Favourite author(s):

Carol Shields, Edith Wharton, Lisa Moore, Mary Lawson, David Sedaris, Lawrence Hill, Rohinton Mistry, too many to count.

Your favourite fictional heroes:

Elizabeth Bennet, Flavia de Luce and probably Jason Bourne on account of his plethora of passports, linguistic prowess, navigational skills and all around awesomeness.

Your real life heroes:

The architects of feminism; people who risk everything for noble causes like peace, equality and social justice, Aung San Suu Kyi springs to mind; anyone coping with mental illness; my husband.

Your favourite food & drink:

My favourite food list is too long to print and my hatred for cooking is too difficult to describe without the use of profanity, so anything made by someone else. Drink: Meursault wine.

What is your greatest fear?

The loss of basic rights and freedoms. Also that platform stilettos will stay in style forever.

A natural talent you’d like to possess:  

Songwriting and a functional sense of direction. I am perpetually lost.

How you want to die:

Fulfilled

Your present state of mind:

Open.

This article was originally published in the Spring 2012 issue of Atlantic Books Today

Find more Proust Questionnaires here 

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Sue Goyette’s poetry has appeared on the Toronto subway system, in wedding vows and spray-painted on a sidewalk. With three collections of poetry published, including the most recent tour de force Outskirts (Brick Books) she’s been nominated for several awards. Here, the Halifax poet contemplates misery, happiness and life as a…dancer?

What do you consider your best quality?

 My enthusiasm though it’s not always a good thing on the dance floor.

A quality you desire in a partner: 

A sense of humour and a sense of direction.

What do you appreciate most about your friends? 

That they’re willing to disagree with me, and that they laugh at the righoutskirts2-191x280t time.

Your worst quality:      

The dark side of my enthusiasm which can make me operatic or single-minded.

Your favourite occupation:

I really like being a poet.

 What is your idea of happiness?

August, my backyard and its trees, the tiny lights in them, friends, my record player and a good box of records.

Your idea of misery:       

Besides the obvious: hunger, poverty, war; the inability to do what I love, not being able to see my kids and step-kids and, way at the bottom of the list, mosquitos and tippy canoes.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?

I’d like to be a dancer in a Marie Chouinard choreographed performance with all of the physical strength and grace that would require. It would be amazing to feel that kind of leap and play and to be in a body that is capable of that. Or maybe a biologist working with packs of wolves and coyotes. It would be fascinating to be familiar with the habitats and habits of that kind of wilderness and to be able to track a pack through the woods.

Where you would most like to live?

Somewhere sustainable but urban, I like the energy of a well-run city. I was just in New York and it was pretty amazing. I like it here because the Atlantic keeps me humble.

Favourite colour:

Orange and raspberry next to each other.

Favourite Animal:

Wolves and foxes. (Owls, bats).

Your favourite poet(s):

There are so many poets who’ve been essential to me. Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Bishop, René Char, Rilke, Paul Celan, Saint Denys Garneau. More currently: Dean Young, C.D. Wright, Amy Gerstaler…

Favourite author(s):

Roch Carrier, Italo Calvino, Katherine Mansfield, William Faulkner.

Your favourite fictional heroes:

I still think of Hagar Shipley from Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel. Her spiciness and bewilderment in the face of aging still rings vivid and true and I read that book many years ago.

Your real life heroes:

The Dalai Lama, people who ride their bikes in Halifax, organic farmers, teachers, activists, artists, people who work with children or seniors, nurses, kids standing up for other kids, people who talk and listen to teenagers.

Your favourite food and drink:

Sweet potato tempura and udon noodles and I really like real lemonade though some days it’s a poutine and a Kilkenny.

What is your greatest fear?

Having a greatest fear is my greatest fear. The idea of a “greatest fear” totally freaks me out. I’d be on the look-out for its long shadow all the time, and it would be out there, like the ocean: skulking.

A natural talent you’d like to possess: 

I’d like to be able to sing. To really sing. But then I’d be unbearable, one big, constant Vegas act.

How you want to die:

Peacefully, elderly, surrounded by family and dear friends.

Your present state of mind:

I’m pretty relaxed and happy.

Favourite or personal motto:       

Goethe’s “Do not hurry, do not rest.”

This article was originally published in the Fall 2011 issue of Atlantic Books Today

Find more Proust Questionnaires here

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98927_macintyre_lindenLinden MacIntyre is a co-host on CBC’s the fifth estate and the winner of nine Gemini Awards for broadcast journalism. His novel The Bishop’s Man, was a number one national bestseller, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and the CBA Libris Fiction Book of the Year, and has been published in the U.K. and the U.S. and has been translated into eight languages.

Recently rereleased by Creative Publishing, Who Killed Ty Conn is an investigative work by Linden MacIntyre and Theresa Burke, producer of the fifth estate.  It tells the tragic story of Ty Conn’s life of crime and misfortune. Originally published by Viking Canada in 2000, the book has been updated and reissued with a new afterword from the author and a new foreword by author and criminologist Elliott Leyton. A classic in the literature of true crime, Who Killed Ty Conn portrays a man coming to terms with a life of rejection—and the social system that failed to save him.

In March 2012, the much-anticipated Why Men Lie (Random House) will hit bookshelves, a story about Effie, the fascinating sister of the troubled priest at the heart of The Bishop’s Man.

Find more Proust Questionnaires here 

What do you consider your best quality?
Punctuality, when I have time.

A quality you desire in a partner:
Punctuality and passion.

What do you appreciate most about your friends?
Passion and discretion.

Your worst quality:
Procrastination.

Your favourite occupation:
Cryptic crossword puzzles.

What is your idea of happiness?
Solitude, a still mind and an easy Guardian cryptic.

Your idea of misery:
Crowds of strangers, the Friday New York Times crossword.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?
Myself as I should be.

Where you would most like to live?
Nearest those I love.

Favourite colour:
The sea and all its hue.

Favourite Animal:
A wise dog.

Your favourite poet(s):
Dylan Thomas, T.S. Eliot, Anna Akhmatova.

Favourite author(s):
John McGahern, William Trevor, John le Carre.

Your favourite fictional heroes:
Leopold Bloom, George Smile.

Your real life heroes:
True public servants in all walks of life.

Your favourite food & drink:
Pasta and Scotch.

What is your greatest fear?
Loss.

A natural talent you’d like to possess:
Music.

How you want to die:
Done.

Your present state of mind:
Pessimistic, restless.

Favourite or personal motto:
Gaelic: Obair la toiseachadh—It’s a day’s work to get started.

This article was originally published in the Holiday 2011 issue of Atlantic Books Today

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Bette MacDonald Mary Morrison’s Cape Breton Christmas (Nimbus Publishing)
Photo by by Murdock Smith

Comedian and Gemini-winning actor Bette MacDonald has delighted audiences for over 20 years. Her beloved character, Mary Morrison, a kerchief-wearing, handbag-carrying Caper, has left viewers rolling in the aisles nearly as long. MacDonald’s new book, Mary Morrison’s Cape Breton Christmas (Nimbus Publishing), is a treasury of all things holiday, including advice for coping with family, gift-giving dos and don’ts and her favourite seasonal recipes.

What do you consider your best quality?
My sense of humour.

A quality you desire in a partner:
The same, a sense of humour. And kindness.

What do you appreciate most about your friends?
I appreciate loyalty and discretion (no one needs to know what we get up to.) And, of course, a sense of humour.

Your worst quality:
I am too impulsive. I often find myself having to undo things. Also, I’m indecisive. Or am I? Yes, I am.

Your favourite occupation:
Fortunately, I’m doing it, writing and performing.

What is your idea of happiness?
Being with family and close friends, being alone in my office writing or being anywhere with my husband, Maynard.

Favourite colour:
It changes. Right now it’s orange.

Your present state of mind:
Happy. Grateful. Excited about what’s next.

Mary Morrison's CB ChristmasIf you could be someone else for a day who would it be?
I would be a famous opera singer performing Tosca at the Met with Bryn Terfel in the role of Scarpia and Jonas Kaufman playing Mario.

Where you would most like to live?
New York. Specifically, anywhere within walking distance of Lincoln Center.

Favourite animal:
Dog. We have two, Roxie and Sam. Their good looks make up for their lack of good manners.

Your favourite poet(s):
Shakespeare, Pablo Neruda, Tennyson, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and so on…

Favourite author(s):
Ed Macdonald, Alistair MacLeod, Shakespeare, Ruth Rendell, Agatha Christie, Harold Bloom, Alice Munro, Stephen Fry… and on and on…

Your favourite fictional heroes:
Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Floria Tosca, Don Giovanni and Falstaff, among others.

Your favourite food & drink:
Anything in the high carb family. Also, I recently had a Manhattan and quickly realized that one is enough. I like many kinds of food but it’s the company that makes or breaks any meal.

A natural talent you’d like to possess:
I would love to be a musician who can play all kinds of music so I could be in Symphony Nova Scotia and in a jazz combo. Sweet.

How you want to die:
Well, I don’t. But if I must, I would like to die of happiness just after learning that I have been cast to play Mrs. Lovett on Broadway with Bryn Terfel as Sweeney Todd. That way, I get the part but I don’t have to learn the lines.

Favourite or personal motto:
One of the most sensible and lovely things I’ve ever read is by Stephen Fry, it ends with, “…all the big words–virtue, justice, truth – are dwarfed by the greatness of kindness.”

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Heather Jessup sideShortlisted for the prestigious Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize, to be awarded this October, The Lightning Field (Gaspereau Press) is Heather Jessup’s first novel. Currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto and a creative writing instructor at Dalhousie University, Heather lives in Halifax, after growing up in Vancouver. Here, she shares her love of many writers, her desire to Flamenco and how she overcame her fear of dogs.

Find more Proust Questionnaires here 

What do you consider your best quality?

I am not sure that one is able to recognize one’s own best quality. I feel much too close to myself to know this. But many people have claimed that I have a good laugh. I would like it if my laugh were my best quality.

A quality you desire in a partner:
Patience, humour, kindness, and the ability to make a good cup of coffee. (Oh dear, that’s four qualities. Apparently I have high expectations when it comes to love!)

What do you appreciate most about your friends?
Their effervescence and wisdom. I have incredibly bright, courageous, and remarkable friends.

Your worst quality:
Unlike our best qualities, I have a hunch we are able to recognize our worst qualities. Why is that? The ones I am willing to share with you: difficulty living in the present moment, and the ability to answer questionnaires. (Sorry, dear reader! I’ll try my best!)

Your favourite occupation:
Writing. Also: teaching, making jam, swimming in lakes, going for bike rides, dancing flamenco, letter-press printing, reading (snuggled under the covers), traveling and daydreaming.

What is your idea of happiness?
Paris.

Your idea of misery:
Insomnia.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?
I think I would like to live inside the mind of an animal. A whale. Or a crow perhaps.

Where you would most like to live?
Near the ocean. Surrounded by people I love.

Favourite colour:
Picking a single colour is very difficult for me. Probably the pink of a just-opened peony. But the particular dark that comes when you can see the stars is also pretty grand.

Favourite Animal:
Leroy the dog. He is the dog that, as an ambassador of his species, made me like dogs after being terrified of them as a child. His approach: taking my soggy mittens when meeting me at the bottom of a steep flight of Montreal stairs and carrying them up to my friend’s apartment for me, placing them ever-so-gently by where my boots would go. Mind you, Leroy is a personal friend now. I also like animals that I don’t know. I like most all animals: jellyfish, camels, sloths, beetles, cows, ravens, cats, tigers, bears. I think liking animals from a small age is why I am now a vegetarian.

Your favourite poet(s):
Oh! Imposssible! I love so many. Warren Heiti. Rainer Maria Rilke. Leonard Cohen. Pablo Neruda. Sheryda Warrener. Gertrude Stein. Wallace Stevens. Amanda Jernigan. Homer. Sue Sinclair. Basho. Issa. Nick Thran. W.H. Auden. Jan Zwicky. Darren Bifford. Seamus Heaney. Sue Goyette. Anne Carson. John Donne. Kate Hall. The author of Beowulf. Michael Ondaatje. Emily Dickinson. Don McKay. I could go on and on.

Favourite author(s):
Again! So many! F. Scott Fitzgerald. Anne Carson. Michael Winter. Michael Ondaatje. Lisa Moore. John Berger. Jorge Luis Borges. Sarah Selecky. David Mitchell. Steven Price. Virginia Woolf. Edward Albee. J.D. Salinger. Jennifer Eagan. Ernest Hemingway. Donald Barthelme. Alice Munro. Alexander McLeod.

Your favourite fictional heroes:
At the moment, Geryon the red winged monster in Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red. But there are many. Mrs. Dalloway is another.

Your real life heroes:
My goddaughter Autumn, who, while most of her friends were busy with high school, has survived leukemia twice with patience, good humour, and grace (while also doing her schoolwork from the hospital!); and my godson Eric, her brother, who is the most amazing brother I have ever met. I aspire to be as hilarious, generous and brave as these two in life.

Your favourite food & drink:
I love most all food, but at this very moment if I could have anything to eat I think I would choose fresh guacamole with corn tortillas and a gin and tonic with lime.

What is your greatest fear?
Regret.

A natural talent you’d like to possess:
I would like to be able to dance flamenco with true duende. Like how Lorca describes it: “Many years ago, during a flamenco dance contest in Jerez, a Gypsy woman of about eighty, competing against stunning young women with waists as liquid as water, carried off the prize by simply lifting her arms, throwing back her head and stamping her heel just once on the stage; but amid that gathering of muses and angels, of beautiful figures and pretty smiles, the dying duende won, as it had to win, dragging the rusty knives of its wings along the ground.” —Federico Garcia Lorca, “Teoria y Juego del Duende”

How you want to die:
Old, peacefully and in my sleep. Although, really, I suspect most people would chose the same. Tortured, dying of thirst, ripped away from family, in war, hungry, suffering, trapped: these are not deaths, I think, that people want. Although perhaps there are braver humans than I. What I think is best about death is that we have no idea how or when it will come. It is inevitable yet mostly unpredictable. If there was a book that told me how I would die, I would never want to read that book.

 Your present state of mind:
Dreamy. Likely because I ought to be focused.

Favourite or personal motto:
At the moment: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.” —Ernest Hemingway

 This article was originally published in the Fall 2012 issue of Atlantic Books Today

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Sheree FitchSheree Fitch has been delighting readers young and old with her lyrical whimsy for decades. Silly, funny and outrageous, Toes in My Nose is the book that launched Sheree Fitch’s career as Canada’s premiere nonsense poet. From Popcorn Pete and Mabel Murple to Zelba Zinnamon, Toes in My Nose includes some of the best-loved poems and characters in Canadian children’s literature. On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary, Nimbus Publishing has released a special edition, illustrated by the award-winning Sydney Smith.

Sheree lives with her husband, Gilles, and together they divide their time between Dartmouth and River John. While Sheree’s uber fun and creative website (naturally) states she studies theology formally and informally, enjoys the outdoors, gym time, yoga and amateur gardening, and here’s a thing, or 21, that you may not know about the literary world’s beloved Sheree Fitch.

What do you consider your best quality?
Open-hearted perseverance.

A quality you desire in a partner:
Intrinsic kindness—a rare and sexy quality my husband has in abundance.

What do you appreciate most about your friends?
Tolerance towards my quirkiness and my disappearing acts—they take me as I am where I am if I am.

Your worst quality:
Forgetting that I must accept the fact that I must accept the things I cannot change.

Your favourite occupation:
Mine: Story-telling. Someone else’s: Astronaut.

What is your idea of happiness?
Chillin’ with small children outdoors.

Your idea of misery:
To get stuck in a state of rage or despair or self-pity.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?
Harriet Tubman.

Where you would most like to live?
Where I am. River John.

Favourite colour:
All of them. (Except beige.)

 Favourite Animal:
My husband. Oops! After him, my dog Burnsie.

Your favourite poet(s):
So hard—so many! E.e. cummings, William Blake, Walter De La Mare, Fred Cogswell, Elizabeth Bishop, Mary Oliver, Sue Goyette.

Favourite author(s):
So many, many, many, here’s a random few: Alice Munro, Meg Wolitzer, Elizabeth Hay, Edith Pearlman, Alexander MacLeod, Flannery O’Connor, Joyce Carey, Alice Walker.  New ones: David Bergen, Carrie Ann Snyder.

Your favourite fictional heroes:
Old: Gully Jimson in The Horse’s Mouth.
New:  Hope Plett in the Age of Hope.

Your real life heroes:
Teachers, doctors/medical professionals, my mother and sister.

Your favourite food & drink:
Pesto pasta from home grown basil and a dry white wine.

What is your greatest fear?
The death of hope, which would mean, to me, the loss of soul and spirit.

A natural talent you’d like to possess: 
Singing.

How you want to die:
Doing what I love and with pen in hand.

Your present state of mind:
After a sad few years, starting to feel reinvigorated—an eagerness and inquisitiveness returning.

Favourite or personal motto:
Kiss the joy as it flies (because it does).

This post is from the Holiday 2012 issue

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Photo credit: Arielle Hogan
Photo credit: Arielle Hogan

Michael Crummey likes to say that he was born in a mining town “as far from the water as you can get and still be in Newfoundland,” but his award winning poetry, bestselling novels and short stories ring true with Atlantic voices. His new novel, the darkly humorous Sweetland (Random House), follows Moses Sweetland as he remains in his remote island home long after the rest of the town abandons it to the ghosts and the weather.

What do you consider to be your
best quality?
I have a very thick head of hair. Sadly, it’s all downhill from there.

A quality you desire in a partner:
Patience!

What do you appreciate most about your friends?
Book recommendations. Beer at the Duke during the playoffs. Bad puns. Dinner parties.

Your favourite occupation:
If you mean, favourite of all the occupations I’ve endured, then I would have to say writer. If you mean, favourite hypothetical occupation, I would have to say writer.

What is your idea of happiness?
A cold Sapporo and a bowl of Kettle Brand Organic Salt and Pepper chips.

Your idea of misery:
Mowing the freakin’ lawn.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?
My dog. He’s got a pretty sweet set-up, if you ask me.

Where you would most like to live?
Somewhere with a more temperate climate and a longer summer. Greenland comes to mind.

Favourite colour:
Black, which contains all colours.

Your favourite poets:
Jack Gilbert. Paul Muldoon. Wistawa Szymborska. Karen Solie.

Favourite authors:
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Mavis Gallant. Recently reading Faulkner and realizing most of the best bits in Cormac McCarthy (who I think is brilliant) are riffs on or lifted from Faulkner.

Your favourite food & drink:
See my idea of happiness, above: Sapporo, Organic Salt and Pepper chips.

Your favourite fictional heroes:
Henry Smart in Roddy Doyle’s A Star Called Henry. Oddly Flowers in Jessica Grant’s Come, Thou Tortoise and Rockwell Kent in Michael Winter’s The Big Why.

What is your greatest fear?
Being broke. Followed closely by having to work a real job again.

How you want to die:
Well, not at all, of course. But since I have no choice in the matter, I would prefer to go in my sleep, late in life, while I still enjoy food, have all my faculties and most of my teeth.

Your present state of mind:
I was fine until I was forced to answer the last question. Now I feel like I need a beer. And a bowl of chips.

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Lisa Moore CaughtLisa Moore is the author of two collections of short stories: Degrees of Nakedness and Open, plus the novels February, Alligator and, most recently, Caught. Moore—who says if she could be anyone else for a day, she would be Isadora Duncan or Beyoncé—lives in St. John’s, NL

What do you consider your best quality?
Tenacity, stick-to-it-iveness. I never say die.

A quality you desire in a partner:
Curiosity. The desire to know every­thing, and a willingness to share whatever he finds out.

What do you appreciate most about your friends?
Creativity, the ability to laugh, to see the world in unexpected ways, to tell good stories, to be bursting with life.

What is your idea of happiness?
A room with a big glass wall that looks out on the water, a wood stove, a comfy couch, a cappuccino, a book, a sunset. Or: same room, big party.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?
Isadora Duncan or Beyoncé.

A natural talent you’d like to possess:
Singing.

Your worst quality:
I am outrageously disorganized about paperwork.

Where you would most like to live?
Room mentioned above, outport Newfoundland. Or: room mentioned above, Greece.

Your favourite food & drink:
Juniper smoked halibut. I just had it at the restaurant in the Fogo Island Inn prepared by chef Murray McDonald. And a very cold beer at the end of the day, every now and then.

Favourite Animal:
Hunter, our English setter: disobed-ient, graceful/goofy, regal/gangly, long pink tongue, eyes full of longing, languid, demanding, wistful, loving.

Your favourite poet(s):
Wallace Stevens, Seamus Heaney, Sharon Olds, Derek Walcott, Ken Babstock, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Sue Goyette, Jeanette Lyons, Carmelita McGrath, Mary Dalton.

Favourite author(s):
Don DeLillo, Lorrie Moore, Mavis Gallant, Elizabeth Bowen, Anne Enright, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, Michael Crummey.

Your favourite fictional hero(es):
Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

Your real life heroes:
The nurses who work in the emergency ward of the Health Sciences Centre hospital [in St. John’s], because they have unflagging energy, good humour, and such deep compassion.

What is your greatest fear?
Being sent into outer space, and not being able to get back.

How you want to die:
Lying in a field, looking up at the stars.

Your present state of mind:
Revved up, hopeful.

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Dr. Richard GoldbloomDr. Richard B. Goldbloom’s achievements and honours are legion—and the man himself is almost legendary; he served as physician-in-chief and director of research at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax for several decades and has authored more than 200 publications. He is chancellor emeritus of Dalhousie University and an officer of the Order of Canada—and, as you’ll see from his answers below, he has a wicked sense of humour. His autobiography, A Lucky Life, was recently published by Formac. [Editor’s note: You can read our review of A Lucky Life here.]

What do you consider your best quality?
Listening and observing.

A quality you desire in a partner:
Warmth (of all kinds).

What do you appreciate most about your friends?
Their number and their quality.

Your worst quality:
Where should I begin?

Your favourite occupation:
Pediatrician.

What is your idea of happiness?
The company of family and friends.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?
[Pianist] Vladimir Horowitz.

How you want to die:
To be shot in bed at 103 by a jealous husband.

Your idea of misery:
Loneliness.

Favourite colour:
Burgundy.

Favourite bird:
The rosy-breasted pushover.

Your favourite poet(s):
Wordsworth.

Your favourite author(s):
SJ Perelman.

Your real life hero(es):
My late father and the late Dr. Sydney S. Gellis (Boston).

Your favourite fictional hero(es):
Inspector Clouseau.

Your favourite food & drink:
Carré d’agneau and a fine Bordeaux.

What is your greatest fear?
Memory loss.

A natural talent you would like to possess:
Piano virtuosity.

Where you would most like to live?
Positano, Italy.

Your present state of mind:
Tranquil (i.e. mindless).

Favourite or personal motto:
If I had my life to live over, I’d live over a delicatessen.