Friday, December 18th Cape Breton University Press will host a book release party from 7-9 pm at the Coastal Discovery Centre in Main-à-Dieu to celebrate the launch of Local Calls, poems by Sean Howard. Refreshments will be provided and everyone is welcome.
Author Sean Howard moved to Cape Breton from England in 1999 and is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Cape Breton University. His poetry has been published in magazines including Geist, Other Voices, Quills, Prairie Journal, Prairie Fire, The Antigonish Review, The Nashwaak Review, Contemporary Verse 2, QWERTY, Vallum and Illuminations (USA), as well as A Quiet, Bashful Man (AB Collector Publishing, 2006), a tribute to the late Maritimes publisher Malcolm Somerville. In Britain, his work appeared in Acclaim, The New Writer, Writers’ Monthly, Envoi, Haiku Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Nottingham International and elsewhere.
Sean holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK, and from 1992-2003 worked as a researcher on nuclear disarmament and international security issues for a variety of non-governmental organizations. He lives in the village of Main-à-Dieu.
The title of this collection is taken from a joke told to Howard by a Sydney realtor, a few days after he and his wife had arrived from England to begin a new life in Cape Breton. If the new residents ever “needed to call Paradise,” the realtor deadpanned, they’d “come to the right place” as “local calls are free.”
Howard agrees, saying “the Island really is a beautiful, powerful – an almost supernaturally natural – place.” He hopes, however, to use his poetry to explore another side of Island life. “The calls may be free, but the news from ‘home’ – the real here – is often disturbing.”
Visit http://www.cbu.ca/press for more information.
