With heartfelt appreciation to Dr. Sarah Emsley, always ready with an inspiring Jane Austen quotation for any occasion, for the marvellous literary friendship and correspondence about literature and the writing life, and for so carefully reading and commenting on the many drafts of these stories.

Thanks to my wonderful children, Silas, Angus, and Milo, whose joy and delight in daily adventures, be they travels abroad or twilight walks out back to see the beaver and night birds, endlessly inspire. And my darling husband, Andy Brown, whose magnificence has imprinted on my life as a watermark does on paper. Andy, my first reader and constant encourager — there are no words to express my appreciation for the miraculous life we have created together. Thank you for the graphic novels always there on the table by the woodstove, for the pink chair contemplations by the pond.

Finally, thanks to dear Maggie Estep, novelist and spoken word artist, who died unexpectedly in 2014. I had the privilege of working with Maggie in 2005 when she was a master artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Maggie was instrumental in the shaping of “Late and Soon,” supplying endless notes and encouragement even when I was back home in Nova Scotia. In 2015, I internet-stumbled upon a beautiful essay in Vice by writer Chloe Caldwell commemorating Maggie’s final years in Hudson, New York. I’ve read “Maggie and Me: My Last Days with the Legendary Maggie Estep” countless times. My heart breaks every time I read it when Maggie briefly lives again. With Chloe’s permission, I quote a line from the essay: “The owner of the yoga studio where Maggie taught said a few words, about how some people are suns and some people are moons, but then there was Maggie, who was a shooting star.”

Whether we are suns or moons, shooting stars or waves that break upon the shore, may we all find some of that brightness which Maggie strew about wherever she went.

Thank you for reading these stories.

About the Author

CHRISTY ANN CONLIN is the author of two acclaimed novels, Heave and The Memento. Heave was a national bestseller, a finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and the Dartmouth Book Award, and was a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book. Her stories have appeared in numerous literary journals including Best Canadian Stories and have been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the American Short Fiction Prize. She also co-created and hosted Fear Itself, a CBC national summer radio series. She holds degrees from the University of British Columbia, the University of Ottawa, and Acadia University. She was born and raised in Nova Scotia, where she still lives.

Instagram: @christy.ann.conlin

Website: christyannconlin.com

About the Publisher

HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS was founded in 1967 by writers Dennis Lee and David Godfrey. Anansi started as a small press with a mandate to publish Canadian writers, and quickly gained attention for publishing authors such as Margaret Atwood, Matt Cohen, Michael Ondaatje, and Erín Moure, as well as George Grant and Northrop Frye. French-Canadian works in translation have always been an important part of the list, and prominent Anansi authors in translation include Roch Carrier, Marie-Claire Blais, Anne Hébert, and France Daigle. Today, the company specializes in finding and developing writers of literary fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction, including Katherena Vermette, Lisa Moore, Patrick deWitt, Tanya Talaga, Djamila Ibrahim, Kathleen Winter, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and in maintaining the culturally significant backlist that has accumulated in the decades since the house was founded.