by Louise Ells
“You did, Mum,” Bea said, reaching her mittened hand for her mother’s. That was why she’d come home now. For her mother to love her well again. She looked away from the raw grief on her mother’s face and then gripped her hand tighter and pointed up.
But the Great Grey owl had been watching them and was startled by Bea’s sudden movement. It extended its wings and flew off, leaving only a soft shower of snow to fall from the branch and a shiver of pine needles in its wake.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you Laura Stradiotto and Heather Campbell of Latitude 46 Publishing, Colette Paul, and Peter Finney. Without you this beautiful book would not exist outside my imagination.
I appreciate the financial assistance provided by the Ontario Arts Council’s Writers’ Work in Progress - Northern Competition. That grant was life-changing for this collection. I wrote many of these stories in Devon; thank you Charlie Haynes of Urban Writers’ Retreats. Thank you Tracey Armstrong for your thoughtful and detailed feedback.
Versions of these stories appeared in the following publications: “Scraping” in The Masters Review, Volume II, “Notes Towards Recovery’ in Harts & Minds 1. 3, “Push” in Words & Women Two, “Erratics” in The Cardiff Review, “Northern Lights” in Open Minds Quarterly, and “Fiddleback Symphony” in Crisp.
Thank you to my exceptional English teachers: Barbara Blanche, Bob Palmai, Skip Shand, and Denis Stokes. I am grateful to all of those with whom I have had the pleasure of discussing short stories including Gillian Beer, Ailsa Cox, Charles E. May, Daniel Menaker, Robert McGill, Valerie Purton, and Bob Thacker.
Resounding thanks to my workshop peers: Robin Kearney, Shreeta Shah, and Euan Stuart in Bath; the Angles, especially Leigh Chambers, Melissa Fu, Mary Nathan, and Kate Swindlehurst, in Cambridge; Catherine Murton Stoehr and John Picard in North Bay.
I am extremely grateful for the Breakfast Club’s support as I navigate an unexpected chapter in my life: Fay and John Fowler, Marg and Jim Gleason, Donna and Dennis Landry, Diana and Paul Roy.
I am blessed to have intelligent and insightful women guiding me and sustaining me. I love you, my friends: Tiffani Angus, Penny Beck, Cindy Brownlee, Amy Crawford, Lucy Durneen, Heather Ford, Caron Freeborn, Rhoda Greaves, Kelly Saunders, Gemma Victor, and Margaret Watson. I do not have words enough to thank you, Laura Kollenberg, Maureen Patterson, and Karen Dunn Skinner, for fifty years of friendship and unfaltering faith.
Love to my family: Timothy, John, Sarah, and Jody Selander, and Tom Holden. Mum and Caroline, I owe you my deepest gratitude for your unconditional love and unwavering belief in my writing. Doug, you urged me to follow my bliss. Your steadfast confidence in me has made everything possible. (Reader, I married him. I grabbed him up, for dear life.)
Copyright © 2019 by Louise Ells
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in reviews.
Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of the Ontario Arts Council.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Notes towards recovery / by Louise Ells.
Other titles: Short stories. Selections
Names: Ells, Louise, 1967- author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190054085 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190054131 | ISBN 9781988989082 (softcover) | ISBN 9781988989099 (HTML)
Classification: LCC PS8609. L5725 A6 2019 | DDC C813/. 6—dc23
Book design: Nine 29 Design Studio Inc.
Cover Artwork: Peter Finney
Cover Design: Heather Campbell and Laura Stradiotto
Author photo: Catherine Holden
Published by:
Latitude 46 Publishing
[email protected]
Latitude46publishing.com