Sometimes erotic and personal, sometimes historical and grand, sometimes witty and full of surprises, the poems here are all beautifully crafted works that are as varied in style as the poems in Duffy's earlier acclaimed volume The World's Wife. Together, they will challenge and entertain as they explore the fullness of the female condition through their author's unique poetic voice.

    It confronts difficult material in a frank and unflinching manner, yet remains grounded in an abiding authorial intelligence. Pedal marks the debut of a hugely promising writer.”–Steven W. Beattie, Quill & Quire“Julia, the protagonist of this intense first novel, is a psychology grad student who risks everything to pursue scientific research in truly forbidden territory: sexual attraction between adults and children. She persists in her quest in spite of skeptical friends, fragile relatives, a squeamish thesis advisor, an enigmatic bike-tour companion, severe social taboos, and her own painful memories of a birth father she calls Dirtbag–not to prove any point but to find out what lies beyond the conventional wisdom. This is an unsettling novel–smart, fierce, confident, funny, and full of surprises–with an unforgettable young woman at the heart of the storm.”–Mary Schendlinger, Senior Editor, Geist“[…] a taut, unsettling, and provoking debut novel […] [Chelsea Rooney] ought to be commended for perceptively addressing such a difficult and inflammatory (and decidedly uncommercial) topic with a subtlety that’s buoyed by ample empathy.”–Brett Josef Grubisic, Vancouver Sun“Pedal is a brave and captivating book, written with an unflinching eye and a deep understanding of the torment that is the human condition. Chelsea Rooney is a major talent.”–Steven Galloway, author of The Confabulist and The Cellist of SarajevoJulia Hoop, a twenty-five-year-old counselling psych student, is working on her thesis, exploring an idea which makes her graduate supervisor squirm. She is conducting interview after interview with a group of women she affectionately calls the Molestas—women whose experience of childhood sexual abuse did not cause physical trauma. Julia is the expert, she claims, because she has the experience; her own father, Dirtbag, disappeared when she was eight leaving behind nothing but a legacy of addiction and violence.When both her boyfriend and her graduate advisor break up with her on the same day, Julia leaves her city of Vancouver on a bicycle for a cross-Canada trip in search of her father, or so she tells people. Her unexpected travel partner is Smirks, a handsome athlete who also has a complicated history. Their travel days are marked by peaks of ecstatic physical exertion, and their nights by frustrated drinking and drugs. After an unsettling incident in rural Saskatchewan involving a trio of aggressive children, Julie wakes up in the morning to discover Smirks has disappeared. Everything, once again, falls apart.Sometimes shocking in its candour, yet charmed with enigmatic characters, Pedal explores how we are shaped by accidents of timing—trauma and sex, brain chemistry and the landscape of our country—and challenges beliefs we hold dear about the nature of pedophilia, the essence of innocence and the idea that the past is something one runs from.

    Lucy Von Alstyne sends fictitious letters to her friend Alicia, pretending to be the father of Alicia's twins, and the two welfare mothers and their five children set off on a journey to find him, facing along the way the complications of living in poverty and raising fatherless children.

    But when an elderly neighbour, Flora Parker, is robbed of her most treasured possession, and left without a penny to her name, the two friends jump at the chance of setting their detecting skills in motion. Meanwhile, Molly's youngest daughter, Ruthie, and her best friend, Bella, are making plans for their joint sixteenth birthday party. Ruthie is determined to look glamorous, a real knock out, to catch the eye of a certain boy for whom she's got more than a soft spot.

    The fairy tale-based works of the tortured confessional poet, whose raw honesty and wit in the face of psychological pain have touched thousands of readers.

    Compiled by her sister after the poet's death and originally published in 1956, this is the definitive edition of Millay, right up through her last poem, Mine the Harvest.

    Linda Pastan writes, "the art that mattered / was the life led fully / stanza by swollen stanza." That life is portrayed here, from memories of the poet's earliest childhood and the ambiguities of marriage and love to the surprises that come with age, always with a consciousness of what is happening in the larger world.

    With her marriage shattered, Erin Belieu sifts the wreckage for the black box, the record of disaster. Propelled by a blistering and clarifying rage, she composed at fever pitch and produced riveting, unforgettable poems, such as the ten-part sequence “In the Red Dress I Wear to Your Funeral”:I root through your remains,looking for the black box. Nothing leftbut glossy chunks, a pimp’s platinumtooth clanking inside the urn. I play youover and over, my beloved conspiracy,my personal Zapruder film—look. . .When Belieu was invited by the Poetry Foundation to keep a public journal on their new website, readers responded to the Black Box poems, calling them “dark, twisted, disturbed, and disturbing” and Belieu a “frightening genius.” All true.

    Winner of the Archibald Lampman Award for Poetry, Whylah Falls has inspired a drama, a stage play, and a feature film, One Heart Broken into Song. This Tenth Anniversary Edition includes "Apocrypha" - a section of previously unpublished poems - and an introduction by Clarke.

    She mothers everyoneher social work clients, her husband, her twenty-something daughters, and her reclusive sister who lives in the attic. Elsie is committed to taking care of everyone--everyone but herself. So, when crazy Aunt Hildy writes to demand a bedroom in their Halifax home, Elsie cant help but say yes. When Hilda arrives, she enchants and enrages the family with her moxie. That and her proclamation that she has hidden treasure in the house and the kings ransom will go to whoever loved her most. When someone threatens Aunt Hildy, she responds with her trademark sass: Go ahead. Shoot me. I dare you. Whoever it is takes her up on it. Suddenly, the house is turned topsy-turvy as Elsies family searches for a treasure that Elsie doesnt believe even exists, and for a killer that could be any one of them. Shoot Me is a funny and sometimes heart-wrenching story about family, fortune, and figuring out who you are and who you love. In Elsie, Crewe has created a character who speaks with humour and honesty to conflicts that exist in the lives of so many women: between work and home, between loving one man and wanting others, and between feeling fulfilled not only as a wife and a mother, but as a woman.

    the princess, the damsel, & the queen piece together the life of the author in three stages, while you serves as a note to the reader & all of humankind. Explores life & all of its love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, & inspirations.

     Knots is a collection of poetry and prose about love and heartbreak, tragedy and grief, survival and loss. It's a journey through the numerous knots that we tie in life, and the ones we tangle and untangle with. It explores the realities of mental illness & suicide, social taboos & violence against women, pain & darkness, self love & healing in all its naked glory. The rhythm of Knots resonates directly with the poet's heart, conveying to the readers that there is a way to untangle every knot in life, but sometimes, some of these knots are what we are made of. Foreword by Dr. Santosh Bakaya

    It assures you that tomorrow will be a better day and encourages you to realise your potential and achieve your aspirations. Petit à Petit is centred on themes like self-love, self-confidence and taking life into your own hands.No matter how far-away and impossible your dreams seem, don't be afraid to reach for them.

    His whimsical and often erotic writing has already captured the hearts and minds of literally thousands of readers from around the world. He paints vivid pictures with intricate words and explores the compelling themes of love, loss, relationships and sex. All beautifully captured in poetry, prose, quotes and little short stories.

    It is a dive deep into the circles of emotion, empathy, acceptance, healing and insights into a different perspective towards life. In the voice of a budding adolescent, the book cascades into day-to day-shortcomings, carved into poetry and at the same time, embraces you in silence and stillness of thought. The book is an attempt to connect with the reader, to reflect upon them, unbiased and together and embrace a new beginning. With simplified use of grammar and vocabulary, this book seeks nothing but the companionship of all. With this debut book, the author aims to connect to one and to all in the message and purpose of existence, the aid of spirituality and an ode to a beautiful journey called life.