Cold Clear Morning (Revised) Digital Edition

Cold Clear Morning, a novel by Lesley Choyce, is now revised and available for your digital reader at the following locations:

Kindle | Smashwords

More Lesley Choyce Books for your digital reader

Three Lesley Choyce books were recently converted to ebooks with Pottersfield Press on Smashwords,  an ebook publishing and distribution platform. That means if your digital reader is a Kobo, Kindle, Sony, Stanza, iBooks or ePub you can now read the following books on those platforms:

• Nova Scotia Shaped By The Sea: A Living History (Revised Edition)
• Peggy's Cove: The Amazing History of a Coastal Village
• Driving Minnie's Piano: Memoirs of a Surfing Life in Nova Scotia

  

Corey Redekop's review of The Republic of Nothing

Ever loved a book? I mean, really loved a book? Loved it so much that your passion overwhelms your common sense, and you'd punch another human being rather than hear a negative word said about it? 

Click here to read Cory Redekop's full review.

Random, a new young adult novel by Lesley Choyce (EXCERPT: Chapter 1)

Click here to read an excerpt from Random, a new novel by Lesley Choyce.

Skate Freaks readers in Kenya

Children in Kenya reading my book, Skate Freak.

Photos courtesy of Eric Walters.

Raising Orion, a new novel by Lesley Choyce (EXCERPT: Chapter 1)

Click here to read an excerpt from Raising Orion, a new novel by Lesley Choyce.

Bookbuzzr.com and Freado.com bring you an excerpt from Random and Raising Orion

Reminder: two new novels September 2010 by Lesley Choyce

Two new novels are being released this month. You can read the first chapter from Random (Red Deer Press) by clicking here and later this week an excerpt from Raising Orion (Thistledown Press) will be available. 

This is a busy month for updates so please feel free to follow me on Twitter and Facebook for news.

Word On The Street Sunday, September 26, 2010

Just to let you know that next Sunday is Word on the Street from 11 am to 5 pm.


I'll be at Victoria Park in Halifax across from the Public Gardens reading from Raising Orion, my new novel at 12:30 and from Random, the new YA novel at 4 pm. Should be fun.

Click here to read excerpts as they become available. 

New novels this fall

This September, Nova Scotian author Lesley Choyce is releasing his first novel for adults in more than seven years called Raising Orion, published by Thistledown Press. He's also celebrating the publication of Random, a young adult novel coming out from Red Deer Press. Choyce is also one of three featured surfers in the documentary Winter Wave Riders (Hemmings House Productions) which is being screened at the Halifax Film Festival this month. In addition, he is also part of a unique poetry-music collaboration with Toronto singer-songwriter Jason McGroarty and soon to release an album blending spoken word and pop music. His previous two CDs were with the band The SurfPoets.

Lesley Choyce is a novelist and poet living at Lawrencetown Beach in Nova Scotia. He surfs in the North Atlantic year-round. He also runs a literary publishing house and teaches English at Dalhousie University. He is the host of a regular nationally-broadcast program on BookTelevision called Off the Page with Lesley Choyce. Choyce is the author of more than seventy books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction for adults, teens and children. His writing has earned him several awards, including two Dartmouth Book Awards and the Ann Connor Brimer Award for the young adult novel Good Idea Gone Bad. His work has been translated into Spanish, French, Danish and German.

Choyce will be available for interviews this fall in Halifax and Toronto. He will be reading from his two new books at Word on the Street in Halifax on September 28.

Random. If you think life makes sense, do not read this book. A novel by Lesley Choyce

What triggered this story for you? 


I had heard so many people using the word “random” in recent years although the very meaning of it had become, well, random.  And I was, yet again, trying to sort out whether my own life made sense, whether there was a true purpose that we all have or if the events of our lives are haphazard and hence random. 
So I came up with Joey and his own personal dilemma. His was, I admit,  a bit deeper and darker than my own. I wanted a different kind of narrative, one that was fragmented and yet compelling which is the way most of us think. That’s why I used the digital diary idea. Once Joey got going with his DD, of course, he took over and all I had to do was hang on and follow his random thoughts and struggles to prove there is no meaning or purpose to life while being gobsmacked over and over with indications that it does all add up to something. Something of great significance.

The young men in your young adult novels are intelligent, sensitive, well-read. It's refreshing to find books which set aside some of the common misconceptions about teenaged boys. Can you comment on that? 


Everyone I have ever known is unique and eccentric in their own way. I wanted Joey and my other male teen characters to exemplify teenagers boys who have very complex emotional and intellectual lives. I was certainly not ever normal in my teen years. No one is. Most teenage guys are actually quite sensitive, intelligent and fragile.  The young macho stuff is just a facade in almost all cases. The massive force of social conditioning that comes today mostly from commercialism and pop culture deprives many teens from exploring their own unique identity. So it is my hope that my quirky characters resonate for both guys and girls and encourages them to be who they want to be. I’ve received enough emails from readers of my books to know that, for some, these novels do connect and help liberate the spirit of those struggling to figure out who they are, those suffering from “being different,” those who feel alienated and isolated.


When you first named your protagonist Joe Campbell, did you know you were going to reveal to him the book by the other Joseph Campbell? 

That was a fluke. All I knew was that his name was Joe, then Joey. At first, I wanted to usher in some Scottish history of all things. I had been reading about the feuds and warfare between the Campbells and the MacDonalds. And then it occurred to me that Joey’s formal name was Joseph Campbell, whose books I had read in university. I had an aha moment or two over that and when I did a bit more research into the life and work of Joseph Campbell, I realized there were some extremely interesting connections to my character and his dilemma. It was then that I was reminded of the fact that there were some rather significant forces of creative energy outside of me that were helping to shape this book.

Joe begins as a boy who is profoundly confused about the purpose of life - because of what has happened to him. But would you agree that this is a condition that applies to most teens at some point in their lives? And is it a handicap for them? 

Hey, not just teens. I am still profoundly befuddled and confused about many things. And yet the confusion and uncertainty, I’ve found, is really the wellspring of my curiosity and creativity. I don’t know if I have a purpose in life and if I was certain of it, I would be a very different person. I live by my hunches and I think Joey is doing that too. When he discovers a hunch of his is wrong, he gets a bit more confused but then absorbs the new information and moves on or at least tries to. And thus he grows, matures. But there is no final absolute solution to his problem or an ultimate answer. 
If you were to ask me what my own hunches are about what I’m doing on this planet, why I am here, I’d say this. I’m supposed to be creative and to write. I need to be kind and compassionate to everyone around me (including my enemies if I have any) as often as I can. I must absolutely give back more than I take. I must try my best to be honest with myself and with everyone around me even when it is difficult. I need to be daring and take chances (but not all the time). And I need to remain passionate about what I do and how I live. And I need to have some degree of fun while doing all the above.

Joe, Gloria and Dean are outsiders in their world. You seem to write a lot about outsiders in your young adult novels. What special qualities do such people have that make them interesting characters to build a story around? 


When we are totally comfortable in our lives, our families, our jobs and our communities, we feel safe and secure. We are comfortable insiders – inside such a nice, cozy (but almost always temporary) womb. It’s a wonderful place to be; it’s just that it doesn’t work out that way all of the time. So then we become outsiders. 
When you are young, you feel like an outsider because you are not fully fledged as an adult. You are simply too young. Then you become an adult and realize that you are still an outsider on a lot of levels. Outsiders are edgy, nervous, problematic and interesting. They often don’t know who they are but they know who they are not. Outsiders are still searching for identity and meaning and that makes them more interesting to write about.

As you develop a story for teenagers, setting doesn't seem to be of prime significance for you; the stories - and Random is an example - could take place anywhere in North America. Is this a deliberate approach? 


I’ve written a number of novels that are very precisely set in Halifax and on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia where I live. Other novels, like Random, could be a random suburban community just about anywhere in North America. I think this makes it easy for many readers to simply imagine that the story is set in the town where they live. But then within that framework, the world of the narrator, Joey in this case, is fairly precise. Yet it’s primarily the landscape of his interior geography that is most important and that’s where the reader should be. Travelling around inside Joey’s head with him and living his life vicariously.

Random is a novel that focuses largely on the main character's thinking through his situation, rather than working out his problem with lively action. This demonstrates your respect for the reader, I think. Could you comment on this? 

I think that most of us live our primary lives inside our heads. We work out most of our problems and make our discoveries internally although they may be triggered by external factors. The wonderful illusion of good first-person fiction is that you, the reader, become the character while you are reading. That is intended to be my “gift” to the reader. You pick up my book about a character who has never existed and events that have never happened. You accept the psychological game that I’ve created – the contract between reader and writer which is the agreement that the fiction is real, at least while you are reading the book. I can’t waste the reader’s time... or mine. So I owe the reader the best possible world I can give him or her. Sometimes that is a daunting task. Fortunately for me, I let Joey take over the novel quite early on and all I had to do was follow his lead.

Republic of Nothing nominated for best book

Lesley Choyce's novel, The Republic of Nothing is nominated for best book in the "Atlantic Canada Reads" Competition.

As of June 18 – Friday, readers can vote for their favourite of the six.  Click here if you’d like to vote for any of the six, or check out the link below:

http://saltyink.com/atlantic-canada-reads-competition/

Seven Ravens: Two summers in a life by the sea BOOK LAUNCH PARTY

You are invited to the book launch party of


Seven Ravens: Two summers in a life by the sea
by Lesley Choyce

November 6, 2009 at 6 - 8pm. The Company House, 2202 Gottingen St., Halifax.


If Eat, Pray, Love had been written by a 50-year-old male surfer from Nova Scotia, it would be Lesley Choyce's Seven Ravens: Two summers in a life by the sea. While Choyce doesn't journey to Italy, India and Bali in search of emotional healing and spiritual growth (though he would probably be happy to do so), his book is also a journey of self-discovery. But instead of leaving everything behind and visiting exotic locales, Choyce takes his pen, his writer's ability to observe and some unexpected literary companions into the wilderness that surrounds his Lawrencetown Beach home to find healing.


Seven Ravens is filled with luminous descriptions of the natural beauties of Nova Scotia, humorous stories of saving orphaned animals with his daughter and moving accounts of Choyce's struggle with depression. There is no self-pity in this book, only honesty, love of nature and a willingness to work through problems in the most human way possible.

Seven Ravens: Two summers in a life by the sea is a book that readers will enjoy, and turn to again and again whenever they are bewildered by life
LESLEY CHOYCE is the author of 70 books for adults, teens and children. He has taught at Dalhousie University for the past 25 years and is the publisher of Pottersfield Press. Lesley surfs year-round in the North Atlantic and is considered the father of transcendental wood-splitting. He lives in a 200-year-old farmhouse at Lawrencetown Beach overlooking the ocean. He also hosts a nationally syndicated TV talk show on BookTelevision. His novel The Republic of Nothing is currently being developed as a feature-length movie.


"Choyce's writing reveals an engagement with both the physical world and the literary one. It is a privilege to be invited on a journey with such an inquisitive and sensitive mind." -Candace Fertile, Quill and Quire


WOLSAK AND WYNN PUBLISHERS LTD. Contact: Noelle Allen noelle.allen@wolsakandwynn.ca Tel: 905-972-9885

Media inquiries: Peggy Walt, pwalt@eastlink.ca, (902) 422-5403

I'm Alive, I Believe in Everything

Writing Down the Wind

Nova Scotia: Visions of the Future

Edited by Lesley Choyce

Nonfiction: Nova Scotia, Energy, Politics, the Future

192 pages, $19.95, 6" x 9" Paperback

ISBN-13: 978-1-897426-07-4

Available in May 2009

Pottersfield Press || Chapters || Amazon

In the spring of 2009, Pottersfield will launch this most insightful book that may set in motion some serious action that can help Nova Scotia live up to its full future potential. The writing is personal, reflective, proactive and thoroughly captivating by more than 30 contributors from many diverse fields of expertise.

In the summer of 2008, Pottersfield publisher Lesley Choyce sent a letter to a select and varied list of Nova Scotians asking them to contribute to a book about this province's future. He invited some of the best minds (and hearts) around the province to present their vision of this possible province of the future. Absolutely anything goes.

Two things prompted this grandiose plan. First, Choyce became a grandfather in May. His daughter Pamela had a boy - Aidan, whose arrival made Choyce think about the world he will inherit and what he will see and experience in his lifetime. Second, while Choyce was away in Yellowknife in June, a forest fire nearly took his house. The flames were not exactly licking the door, but it was headed its way with a strong north wind and a lot of fuel in the form of forests ravaged by Hurricane Juan and clear-cutting. When he got home, he went hiking up into the charred land several times. Once the sadness wore off, he started thinking about renewal... and about the future.

That's when he decided to pull this book together. He invited many Nova Scotians to write anything they wanted to, hoping contriutors would cover environment, technology, immigration, social aspects, urban life, rural life, energy, politics, government, family, economics, forests, the ocean and much more. The bolder the vision, the better. Stories and personal aspects were okay. Controversial ideas were fine. Which future? Anything beyond ten years and up to a thousand.

Some of the contributing writers include Marq deVilliers, Peggy Hope-Simpson, Richard Zurawski, Premier Rodney MacDonald, Budge Wilson, Alan Wilson, Dr. Richard Goldbloom, Carol Bruneau, Tom Gallant, Geoff Regan, Sunyata Choyce, Neal Livingston, Barb Stegemann, Bill Carr, Bob Howse, Ralph Martin, and Stephen Clare among others.

Peggy's Cove: The Amazing History of a Coastal Village

Nonfiction: Nova Scotia History, The Maritimes

146 pages, $15.95, 6"x9" Paperback (Includes photographs)

ISBN-13: 978-1-897426-00-5

ISBN-10: 1-897426-00-3

Available in July 2008

Amazon || Chapters

Here is the complete history of the famous cove and the unique village that hosts thousands of visitors each year. The story begins with the formation of the rocks along these shores and the impact of the glaciers. The Mi'kmaq were the first to live here in the summers, harvesting the
riches of the sea. A land grant in 1811 brought the first hardy settlers, who built homes and wharves and discovered that the sea could provide bounty but was also a source of great danger.

The story includes the origin of the name, Peggy's Cove, and details about the everyday life of nineteenth-century families living here. A history of the famous lighthouse is included and there are excerpts from many of the famous and not-so-famous visitors who have written
about the Cove through two centuries.

The author explores the most damaging storms, the shipwrecks, the reports of sea monsters and other strange phenomena. Fishing was always a source of income, but it changed over the years. At times the fish prices were so low it was not worth the effort and, in recent years, dramatic changes to the ocean have seen the collapse of several important species of fish.

In the twentieth century, Peggy's Cove attracted artists, writers and ultimately thousands of tourists. Sculptor William de Garthe made his home here and created his monument to the coastal fishermen out of the sheer granite outcropping in his backyard. In 1998, Swissair Flight
111 crashed off the shores of Peggy's Cove and the community opened its doors to the world in an effort to provide support for the rescue workers and the families of the victims. From the earliest days to the present, the story of Peggy's Cove has been a tale of natural wonder and
human endurance.

Lesley Choyce lives at Lawrencetown Beach and is the author of 65 books including
Nova Scotia: Shaped By The Sea and The Coasts of Canada, a history of the country's shorelines. He has also edited Nova Scotia: A Traveller's Companion.

The Book of Michael

Red Deer Press
Juvenile Fiction/Social Issues/Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance
Ages 16+ • 224 pages • 5 1/4 x 7 1/4"
ISBN 0–88995–417–8 paper • CDN 12.95 • USA 12.95

Michael Grove was sixteen years old when he was convicted for the murder of Lisa Conroy, the girlfriend he loved very much. The circumstances surrounding her final hours attract considerable media attention, especially because Michael and Lisa had sex just prior to her death. A public outcry against light penalties for young offenders ensures Michael is tried as an adult; he receives a harsh and severe penalty. Six months into his imprisonment, the true murderer confesses. Michael is released but quickly finds that the stigma of imprisonment and the (wrongful) rap for murder is not an easy thing to escape out on the streets.

White Pine Award Nomination for The End Of The World As We Know It

Lesley's Young Adult novel "The End of the World As We Know It" has been nominated for a 2008 White Pine Award.

Click here for more information about this prestigious award.

"Author Lesley Choyce has filled his latest book with quirky yet complex characters, and his adept portrayal of one teen's inner struggles - struggles that are not fuelled by extreme poverty, abuse, or neglect or any other external provocations - is at once profound and utterly realistic. Carson's story of subtle growth and quiet transformation will resonate with a wide range off readers. It is a beautifully honest book tinged with sadness, but ultimately filled with optimism and hope."
-- Atlantic Books Today (Halifax)

Book Description

"I hate the world and everything in it. And that includes me."

Asked to write something for English class that expresses who he really is, 16-year-old Carson takes pleasure in blistering the page with hate for everything in his life. Stuck in a private school for kids who have repeatedly flunked out elsewhere, Carson knows he's got nowhere lower to sink to. "Flunk Out Academy" is the last resort for Carson and his classmates, in a small town where its deeply troubled students are decidedly unwelcome.

Then Carson meets someone who is even less optimistic than he. Christine struggles to get by, living in a trailer by herself, abandoned by her mother and father, so desperate that she has become almost immune to the pain and loneliness.

Confronted by her deep sadness, Carson starts to care for her and she for him. Once focused on someone other than himself, he begins to notice the world around him and realize that there is beauty as well as hopelessness, love as well as hate. Together the two teenagers struggle to work out how they are going to live in an imperfect world. There are no easy happy endings, but somehow the journey eventually makes the pain worthwhile.

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Red Deer Press; 1 edition (May 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0889953791
• ISBN-13: 978-0889953796
  

If you like, you can order your copy from many online and bricks & mortar book sellers. Here are a few links for your convenience:
Chapters.ca || Amazon.com

New Facebook.com Fan site for Lesley Choyce