Resolute Bear Press announces the release of 3 Nations Anthology: Native, Canadian & New England Writers. While much attention is focused on the border between Mexico and the United States, this book looks at the northeast, where Canada and New England share borders, boundaries, blood, and heritage. Some of the world's highest tides surge in and out every day where successive waves of people have come and gone. Native and First Nations people have lived here for ten thousand years or more. The land is disputed in places, in others the US and Canada share responsibility, and Tribal Lands reside as sovereign nations within their borders. The poems, essays, and short stories in this anthology explore the things that divide, the bridges between, and the intense love of this rugged region the people hold in common.
The idea for this book came about ten years ago, when Valerie Lawson and her partner
Michael Brown moved from Cape Cod to Maine. They fell in love with the "real downeast" beyond Bar Harbor and settled in the tiny town of Robbinston on Passamaquoddy Bay. The presence of the Passamaquoddy tribe and Canada close by were appealing. The thought of joining these three sovereign nations in dialogue presented itself early on. It would take much longer to make this book happen.
Lawson and Brown established Resolute Bear Press in 2008 to publish Off the Coast, a quarterly literary journal. The journal presented poetry, artwork, and reviews from Maine and around the world. The 3 Nations Anthology is the first book published by the press. The anthology was edited by Valerie Lawson, who has won awards for poetry and spoken word performance and recently graduated from the University of Maine at Machias with a degree in Electronic Publishing.
Authors of the 3 Nations Anthology range from those for whom this book will be their first publication to a Pulitzer Prize nominee. They include: Kathleen Ellis, Stephanie S. Gough, Grey Held, Leonore Hildebrandt, Carol Hobbs, Paul Hostovsky, J. Kates, Michele Leavitt, Carl Little, Donna M. Loring, Mark Melnicove, Sarah Xerar Murphy, Susan Nisenbaum Becker, Fredda Paul, John Perrault, Bruce Pratt, Patricia Ranzoni, JD Rule, Cheryl A. Savageau, Catherine Schmitt, Lee Sharkey, Karin Spitfire, Elizabeth Sprague, David R. Surette, Jeri Theriault, Danielle Woerner, and many others.
The book has received impressive advance praise. Chris Benjamin, Managing Editor of Atlantic Books Today and winner of the Silver Atlantic Journalism Award in 2014 states, "From the opening pages of the 3 Nations Anthology, Elizabeth Sprague's 'This That This' emphatically announces a book pulsing with the heartbeat of the land."
Patricia Smith, author of Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the 2014 Rebekah Bobbitt Prize, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize (The Academy of American Poets), and the Phillis Wheatley Award in Poetry speaks to the poetry, "Reading the poems in this long-overdue collection is like pulling a deep, revivifying breath into the body. And we're reminded that the world conjured so faithfully in this work is still there, where it's always been, still waiting for us." Joseph Bruchac, winner of the Writer and Storyteller of the Year Awards from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas and founder of the Greenfield Review Literary Center writes, "In many ways, the 3 Nations Anthology is a breath of fresh air. The idea of bringing together Canadian, Native, and New England writers is, in itself, a refreshing change from the literary and cultural barriers that we all too often allow to come between us. …let me just quote these lines from a piece by Dan Crowfeather McIsaac that catch the spirit of this collection: 'My brothers and sisters, the walls are everywhere and they are very high indeed. But they are not too high if we work together. Come-give me your hand….'."
3 Nations Anthology is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and also from the publisher. For more information about the 3 Nations Anthology and Resolute Bear Press can be found at www.resolutebearpress.com.
