Recently I visited the town of Cupids in Newfoundland, the first English settlement in 1610 in what would eventually become Canada. We walked through the very impressive museum and looked at various installations, reading through all the information there. Being an eagle-eye when it comes to anything to do with books, writing and publishing, I saw this plaque:

I immediately wrote down the book information and, when we returned to St. Bride’s, I checked the library’s listings to see if I could find a copy to borrow of “The first book of poetry to be written in the New World”, and it was written not all that far from where I now live! I was in luck, because although an “original” copy of this book may be in the library’s archives, it’s not circulating, but Problematic Press had reprinted paperback copies of the poems in 2013, and I was able to borrow that edition.

The original collection of poetry was written by Robert Hayman in the neighbouring town of Harbour Grace and was first printed and published in London, England, in 1628, under the title Quodlibets, Lately Come Over from New Britaniola, Old Newfoundland.

A facsimile of the original title page, published in 1628

I tell you about this book of poetry now, because recently I heard from a friend who praised my own writing … that she had very much enjoyed reading my first novel and was planning on getting a copy of the second to read. I immediately mailed a copy to her and when she received it she wrote back to thank me. She also posted about me and the novel on her Facebook page. I thanked her for the notice and asked that she please let her friends know about my writing and books, because that’s the way many of us authors survive – through word-of-mouth recommendations from happy readers. She told me she’d do what she could, but that so few people she knows are reading books these days. By which I figured she meant “print books”, but also I know she inferred “books in general” as many people have said to me lately, “I don’t read books” or “I’m too busy to have time to read” or “I get my entertainment in other ways – TV, Netflix, Tik-Tok, other social media … ”

So I knew my friend was correct in saying what she did about people not reading. I got a little depressed, momentarily, but then began thinking about Robert Hayman’s book, which I was then reading. And it occurred to me that, even though there is an almost 400-year-spread between his publication and mine, I’m still experiencing that age-old problem authors have always had of finding readers for my books, or for any books, for that matter. The main difference though between Hayman’s time and now is that when he was writing his poetry, few people could actually read at all or could not afford to purchase copies of published books. Books weren’t read to a great extent due to illiteracy; books aren’t read today though mainly due to indifference … It’s a sad situation, either way.

So we authors just need to carry on regardless, write for the joy of writing and tell our stories the best way we can. If we sell copies of our books and find new readers along the way, so be it, and that’s lucky for us! Possibly, too, in 400 years, someone might see the benefit and need of reprinting and distributing what we are writing right now … just as what happened with Robert Hayman’s poetry.

One can always live in hope there’s an audience out there somewhere, at some time …

I’m just getting in under the wire with this post as May has been the month of the short story … And I would not have known this had it not been for a post by my good friend Betty Jane Hegerat with her own short story to celebrate. Here’s what Betty Jane had to say about this posting:

In this month of May, it seems particularly appropriate that we celebrate the life of Alice Munro, whose name comes first to mind when we think of short story.

So for the Month of the Short Story–a story simply because.

(For more information about Betty Jane Hegerat, please view the listing I created for her on the Authors-Readers International page.)

And, without further ado, here is my own short story contribution, Plaids and Stripes.

Plaids and Stripes

Mike Robbins is an author I have previously promoted on my Authors-Readers International list. We had been writing to each other earlier today, talking about my new home in Newfoundland, and specifically about the history of the province. Mike directed me towards this blog post he had written in 2019, so I thought I would share the information here on my blog. It’s a fascinating story!

Thursday, 13 June 2019
The water jump

A hundred years ago today, a large biplane lumbered into the air at St John’s, Newfoundland. Sixteen hours later, the Old and the New World were much closer

It wasn’t a great year. The First World War had stopped, but no peace treaty had yet been signed; meanwhile fighting continued in much of Europe as new countries were born and quarrelled with each other. Finland was recovering from a terrible civil war; that in Russia was at its height. In Hungary, the Soviet regime of Béla Kun would hold power for five months, during which it managed to fight two of its neighbours before being destroyed by a third. In Ireland the War of Independence began. In India, British troops killed hundreds of demonstrators in the Amritsar massacre. Even if you dodged all these, you weren’t safe; a global flu pandemic was in progress. It reached every country on earth, and is thought to have killed up to 5% of the world’s population. In fact, 1919 was a bit shit.

But even in a year like that, good things can happen. Just before 4pm on Saturday, June 14, a Vickers Vimy biplane bomber taxied out for takeoff in a field at St John’s, Newfoundland.

Climbing away from Lesters Meadow

To continue reading the original blog post, click here …

Just after the New Year, I received a message from a Facebook friend saying he was planning on reading all three of my publications in their eBook format. I was tickled pink, to say the least, and told him I hoped he would enjoy them.

So, imagine my gobsmacked surprise when, less than 12 days later, I received an email from John Edwards telling me he’d already finished reading all three books! So he was following Rule #3 on this list by writing directly to me:

Here’s the message John wrote to me (spoilers redacted!):

Hi Sue,

I quite enjoyed the read.

Island in the Clouds had the two things I like in a murder mystery. First of course is a dead body early in the book. I prefer to speculate on who the killer is than speculate of who will be killed. The second thing I like is a good twist in the plot. Here the motive came as an excellent twist. Altogether an excellent read.

One Woman’s Island was a much more thoughtful read. It has me thinking about my own relationship with Bequia and the world in general. You were able to present different motives without being judgmental. This book will keep me thinking for a while.

That Last Summer, the diary of the teenage girl stuck me as a novel from the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys era. That was until the epilogue. I then started to wonder how much of this was autobiographical. It was a nice little read after One Woman’s Island. I could, based on my own mid 60’s experiences, relate to events. It was was easy to visualize water skiing on an Ontario lake.

Thank you
John

Now, above in my into to all this, I said that John Edwards was a “Facebook friend”, which he is, because we have never yet met in person, even though: we both spend winters on Bequia (he lives next door to a good friend of ours, the other Canadian Sue); we are approximately the same age … me being the younger by about 6 months; and he keeps a boat moored in Toronto at a marina close to where I grew up in The Beach. That’s also where John spends his summers, in Canada. Funny that we’ve never met though in all these years of sharing Bequia as a winter home. Now I will make a point of meeting John, if only to be able to thank him in person for writing the above thoughts after reading my books.

So thanks, John! It really may seem like a small thing, but let me tell you … this writer is eternally grateful whenever she hears that anyone has enjoyed reading what I’ve written. This is what keeps me plugging away at the computer! And thinking up new story lines for future books.

John Edwards has a great love for snorkeling around the beautiful shores of Bequia, and has become an accomplished underwater photographer, posting many of his photos on Facebook for all of us to enjoy. He gave me permission to use this photo, although he was sorry he didn’t have a photo of a flounder.

Photo credit: John Edwards