Bluffs: Northeastern Ontario Stories from the Edge

After reading the 20 stories Your Scrivener Press published in Outcrops: Northeastern Ontario Short Stories (October 2005), you might feel you know the lay of the region's fictional landscape.

Well get ready to have your horizon expanded!

Bluffs presents a wonder-working miscellany of 19 stories, again by acclaimed, established, and emerging authors.

The collection is a sampler of forms, styles, and genres. Knowing how to "call" these Bluffs isn't easy. Though they present characteristics of ghost stories, science fiction, mystery, satire, folktale, dark comedy, magic realism, meta-fiction, what's common among the stories is how they surprise our expectations. Their world is not our world, though it may look like it initially. If we follow their lead, they take us to the various edges of what we know. From their cliff-edges we can both look back at our no-longer-familiar landscape, and step forward into . . .

Try calling these Bluffs-into your literary landscape . . . or step into theirs.

Louise Allin, "No Crime"
Tony Armstrong, "The Longshot"
Jennifer Rouse Barbeau, "Grumble"
Dave Bartlett, "Extraterrextrials"
Linda M. Bayley, "The Rhythm Blues"
Lauren Carter, "Culture Shock"
Margaret Christakos, "Mrs. Lewellen"
Sean Costello, "The Apology"
Richard deMeulles, "Ramasseur"
Kim Fahner, "Elemental Grace"
Ines Habara & Christian Nelson, "The Uncalled Phone Call"
Melissa Hardy, "Lightning"
Mark Leslie, "Being Needed"
Vickie McGauley, "Hysterical"
Susie Moloney, "On the Map"
Roger Nash, "The Choirmaster"
Rob O'Flanagan, "Alien Parasites of Big Land Farm"
Richard Pulsifer, "Boomerang"
Charlie Smith, "Graveyard on Seven-Fifty"

Louise Allin - Garson , is a long-time professor at Cambrian College in Sudbury. She is the author of the popular Belle Palmer mysteries published by RendezVous Press of Toronto, including Northern Winters are Murder, Black Flies are Murder, and Bush Poodles are Murder.

Tony Armstrong - Val Caron, has won numerous prizes for his short fiction in Sudbury area newspapers, and has appeared in a variety of periodicals and anthologies. He was part of Your Scrivener Press's poetry anthology Northern Prospects (1998), and his book of poetry, Shirtless Tattoo, was published by Your Scrivener Press in 1999.

Jennifer Rouse Barbeau - Sturgeon Falls, is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto, where she majored in Illustration, with a special interest in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in Reader's Digest and Canadian Living Magazine. She currently works as a freelance journalist, teaches college level general interest and management development courses, and bids on government writing contracts. She is founder of the West Nipissing Writers' Network.

Dave Bartlett - Parry Sound, was part of Your Scrivener Press's poetry anthology Northern Prospects (1998). He published, edited, and wrote for Sounding Line, a Parry Sound newspaper which ran from 1997 to 2000. Now he's a teacher. He plays banjo, sings, and writes for Nineteen James, a musical group with three CDs currently, all available from White Squall in Parry Sound.

Linda M. Bayley - Sudbury, has published her work in Geist, Open Minds Quarterly, and Storyteller, Canada's Short Story Magazine, where "The Rhythm Blues" first appeared in Winter 2002. Her chapbook Estrangement: Poems appeared in 2004.

Lauren Carter - Orillia (Blind River), is a freelance journalist and travel writer whose work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, NOW Magazine, THIS Magazine and several other publications. She wrote the Outdoors section for Moon Metro Toronto (Avalon Publishing, 2003) and was short-listed for This Magazine's Great Canadian Literary Hunt in 2001 and their Best New Writer-Creative Non-Fiction Contest in 2002. She also writes a weekly column for her local paper, the Orillia Packet and Times, and teaches at the local community college. Your Scrivener Press published her poetry collection Lichen Bright in fall 2005.

Margaret Christakos - Toronto (Sudbury), has published six collections of poetry and one novel. Her poetry collection Excessive Love Prostheses was awarded the 2003 ReLit Award for Poetry, and her novel Charisma was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award in 2001. Coach House published her most recent poetry collection, Sooner, in fall 2005. She taught creative writing for five years at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and has been a magazine editor as well as a freelance editor for a variety of clients. She is highly involved with PEN Canada's Readers & Writers program, and in 2004-5 was Canada Council Writer in Residence with the English Department at the University of Windsor.

Sean Costello - Sudbury, published three mass market horror/suspense novels which garnered him comparisons to Stephen King and a devoted fan following: Eden's Eyes (1989), The Cartoonist (1990), and Captain Quad (1991). Finding the book-a-year mass market pace impossible to maintain alongside his position as an anesthesiologist with the Sudbury Regional Hospital, Sean took a publishing hiatus for a decade. He returned in fine form with Finders Keepers (2002) and The Sandman (2003). More books are in the works, at Sean's own pace.

Richard deMeulles - Sudbury, manages a provincial, mine-safety organization but has also worked in construction, communications and counselling. He's published articles, scripts and short stories, the latter in Short Story, Cross Canada Writers' Quarterly, Descant, and On Spec. He says of the north, "I belong to it more than it belongs to me."

Kim Fahner - Sudbury, teaches English at Marymount Academy. She is a poet, having published You Must Imagine The Cold Here (Your Scrivener Press, 1997) and braille on water (Penumbra Press, 2001). She was also part of Your Scrivener Press's poetry anthology Northern Prospects (1998). She studied with Timothy Findley as her mentor in the Humber School for Writers. She also, for a short time in the 1990s, published a poetry journal called like lemmings: poetry over the edge with fellow writer Melanie Marttila.

Ines Habara & Christian Nelson - Sudbury. Ines is a landed immigrant from Brazil where she has published two books about Japanese and Brazilian culture, and a children's picture book A Esperta Mão Aberta (The Smart Open Hand), in which two hands-one open and one closed-discover surprising gestures encouraging meeting and friendship. Christian is an animator for the weekly cartoons Chilly Beach and Maple Shorts of CBC TV. His Maple Short Dr. Pin was voted a viewer favourite. Together they created the animated short film for children A Cor Do Azul (The Colour Glue) which was screened at the Animamundi International Animation Festival in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 2005.

Melissa Hardy - London (Timmins area), is the author of The Uncharted Heart, where "Lightning" first appeared in book form. She has also written A Cry of Bees (1970) and Constant Fire (1995), and won the 1994 Journey Prize. Her stories have appeared in a wide range of literary periodicals and anthologies such as Best Canadian Short Stories and Best American Short Stories.

Mark Leslie - Hamilton (Levack), drops his last name "Lefebvre" when writing, opting for a shorter, more easily spelled version. Although he lives in Hamilton and works in Toronto in the I.T. department for Canada's largest book retailer, he still considers Northern Ontario his home. In October 2004 Mark released a collection of previously published fiction and poetry entitled One Hand Screaming and has recently completed work on his first novel, Morning Son.

Vickie McGauley - Sudbury, a former journalist, has written for CBC radio, the Sudbury Star, Northern Life, Northern Ontario Business along with numerous other print publications. She has also written several scripts for television, video and film. She wrote and directed the acclaimed documentary 'A Show of Hands' and wrote and hosted the television gardening show 'Roots & Shoots'. This is her first published work of fiction.

Susie Moloney - Winnipeg (Manitoulin), is the author of three best-selling suspense/horror thrillers: Bastion Falls (Key Porter 1995), A Dry Spell (Delacorte 1997), and The Dwelling (Random House 2003). In her years on Manitoulin Island she was a committed member of the Sudbury Writers' Guild. An award-winning humourist, Susie's column Funny Girl, ran weekly in Sudbury's Northern Life newspaper, as well as several other Northern papers.

Roger Nash - Sudbury, is a past President of the League of Canadian Poets and, with Senator Grafstein, helped create the Canadian Poet Laureate position. His sixth and most recent book of poems is Once I Was a Wheelbarrow (Bayeux Arts, 2000). He has won a number of literary awards, including the Canadian Jewish Book Award (for In the Kosher Chow Mein Restaurant, Your Scrivener Press, 1996) and the Confederation Poets award (twice). He edited Your Scrivener Press's poetry anthology Northern Prospects (1998). His most recent book is a collection of essaysThe Poetry of Prayer (2004, Edgeways Books, U.K.). He is a synagogue cantor and teaches Philosophy at Laurentian University.

Rob O'Flanagan - Sudbury, is a writer, visual/spoken word artist and journalist whose short stories appeared as The Blown Kiss Collection (Catchfire Press, 2000). He is a staff reporter and columnist for The Sudbury Star. His articles have appeared in newspapers across Canada, and his fiction has appeared on CBC Radio and in Grain magazine. Rob is currently working on a novel, and composing electronic music and text for spoken word performances and recordings.

Richard Pulsifer - Hanmer, is a life-long resident of Northern Ontario who recently relocated to Hanmer from the Kapuskasing area where he worked as an elementary school principal, social housing manager and coordinator of French-language services for the Ministry of Health. He has written a dozen prize-winning short stories, including "Boomerang" (Timmins Daily Press 1993), as well as four plays that have been produced locally and a novella for adult literacy learners.

Charlie Smith - Massey, lives in a 100 year old haunted farmhouse, runs 50 head of beef, lives for opening day in the fall, and writes poetry and stories that have made him a household name on Manitoulin and the Northshore. Your Scrivener Press published The Beast that God has Kissed: Songs from the Birch Lake Road (2000), Through Three Long Miles of Night: More Songs from the Birch Lake Road (2003), and Tag Alder Tales (2005) where "Graveyard on Seven-Fifty" first appeared.