By Dee Dwyer
Last month, I profiled Joan Baxter, Karen Bradley, and Gwen Davies, who will read at the Fall for Books Festival 2018 at the Old School on Sunday, November 4 from 1 pm to 4 pm. This month I am profiling the other three authors reading on that date: Brian Bartlett, Genevieve Graham, and Richard Bell.
A retired professor of English at Saint Mary’s University, Brian Bartlett is a prolific writer with five books of poetry, a few chapbooks, several books on writers such as Don Domanski, and Don McKay--and recently a book about living with poetry, and two books of nature writing. The blurb on the back cover of Wanting the Day(Goose Lane, 2003) says that Bartlett’s poetry “fuses ideas, events and emotions with subterranean dreams, compressing them until they turn to diamonds.” Come out on Sunday, November 4th to hear Brian surprise us with his keen, lyrical observations.
Genevieve Graham is our local bestselling author of historical fiction. Her three novels--Tides ofHonour, Promises to Keep, and Come from Away--are all Globe and Mail bestsellers. In April 2019 she will promote her latest book, At the Mountain’s Edge, about the Klondike Gold Rush. Genevieve is multi-talented, playing the oboe, and attaining her black belt in karate. She has lived in Musquodoboit Harbour since 2008 with her husband Dwayne, their two daughters Emily and Piper, now studying at Dalhousie, their dog Murphy, and a flock of heritage chickens.
Richard Bell is known along the Eastern Shore as the editor of this newspaper. He started off as a journalist at the Fire Island News. In 1982, he won the 1982 George Orwell Award with for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language, presented by the National Council of Teachers of English as the co-author of the Sierra Club Book, Nukespeak: Nuclear Language, Myths, and Mindset. In 1984 he switched to politics as the Issues Director for John Kerry’s first campaign for U.S. Senate, leading him to Washington and research, writing, and pioneering work on the web and social media at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee. Before leaving DC for Nova Scotia, he also put in five years as VP for Communications at the global environmental think tank, the Worldwatch Institute, and one final stint in politics as blogmaster for Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. A landed immigrant now, he has served on a number of boards, and was one of the founders of this newspaper.
It will be a real treat to hear Brian Bartlett, Genevieve Graham, and Richard Bell read at this year’s Fall for Books Festival on November 4. Admission is free, and you can buy books and enjoy the works of talented writers.
