Barbara Williams – författare

Anne Langton (1804-1893) arrived in Upper Canada in 1837 to join her brother John on his settler farm near Fenelon Falls, Ontario. An accomplished miniaturist, landscape artist, and writer, Langton documented ten years of family and community hardship and growth in her journals, letters, and art, and traced her own physical and psychological transformation from cultivated Englishwoman to hard-working pioneer settler. She became an exceptionally influential member of the community, developing the first school and library in the area, ministering to the sick, undertaking charitable work, and hosting community events, all the while continuing to record her reactions to her new world in her writing and artwork.First published in 1950, A Gentlewoman in Upper Canada is a classic work of early pioneering literature. This new, significantly expanded edition includes many of Langton's original illustrations and reveals Langton's views on writing, art, and women's social and familial roles in nineteenth-century Europe and Canada. In her extensive introduction, Barbara Williams contextualizes Langton's life and work and reflects on them in light of current scholarship in life writing, art history, and early emigrant, cultural, and social history. This is the definitive edition of Anne Langton's important text.

Anne Langton (1804-1893) arrived in Upper Canada in 1837 to join her brother John on his settler farm near Fenelon Falls, Ontario. An accomplished miniaturist, landscape artist, and writer, Langton documented ten years of family and community hardship and growth in her journals, letters, and art, and traced her own physical and psychological transformation from cultivated Englishwoman to hard-working pioneer settler. She became an exceptionally influential member of the community, developing the first school and library in the area, ministering to the sick, undertaking charitable work, and hosting community events, all the while continuing to record her reactions to her new world in her writing and artwork.First published in 1950, A Gentlewoman in Upper Canada is a classic work of early pioneering literature. This new, significantly expanded edition includes many of Langton's original illustrations and reveals Langton's views on writing, art, and women's social and familial roles in nineteenth-century Europe and Canada. In her extensive introduction, Barbara Williams contextualizes Langton's life and work and reflects on them in light of current scholarship in life writing, art history, and early emigrant, cultural, and social history. This is the definitive edition of Anne Langton's important text.

Anne Langton (1804-1893) arrived in Upper Canada in 1837 to join her brother John on his settler farm near Fenelon Falls, Ontario. An accomplished miniaturist, landscape artist, and writer, Langton documented ten years of family and community hardship and growth in her journals, letters, and art, and traced her own physical and psychological transformation from cultivated Englishwoman to hard-working pioneer settler. She became an exceptionally influential member of the community, developing the first school and library in the area, ministering to the sick, undertaking charitable work, and hosting community events, all the while continuing to record her reactions to her new world in her writing and artwork.First published in 1950, A Gentlewoman in Upper Canada is a classic work of early pioneering literature. This new, significantly expanded edition includes many of Langton's original illustrations and reveals Langton's views on writing, art, and women's social and familial roles in nineteenth-century Europe and Canada. In her extensive introduction, Barbara Williams contextualizes Langton's life and work and reflects on them in light of current scholarship in life writing, art history, and early emigrant, cultural, and social history. This is the definitive edition of Anne Langton's important text.

The idea for Shoot-out at Jasper Creek came from a story circulated in my grandmothers neighborhood when I was a child.As the story goes, a thirty-something mystery man who had, somehow, lost a good deal of his face, walked around the back roads of the area at night, talking to himself and his dog. His looks were shocking. His face and neck were bright red with waves of scaly scar tissue buckling it in all directions. His looks frightened children to the point that they were afraid to wander away from their yards without their mother or father. Some said that if he caught children alone he beat them with his flashlight. Of course it never really happened. Although the man was never actually seen by any of the local residents, the folk tale persisted.It is not difficult to imagine that many tales had sprung up about how the mans injuries came about. For some unexplained reason, one man thought he had been a former pirate.One of the tales often repeated was that he was homosexual and his lover had accused him of being untrue and had shot him, maiming him for life. I have no idea how that story came about, or whether there was even a grain of truth to it. Actually, I doubt that the man ever existed.Novels come about for various reasons. The tales have haunted my thoughts through the years. It was time to bring the mystery man to life. Shoot-out At Jasper Creek is my version of the story. Im a lover of Western lore, and I live in the West, so I decided to put the story in context by placing it in the country I know the best with realistic western characters and their local speech habits.Novels come about for various reasons. Shoot-out At Jasper Creek is my way of explaining the folk tale about my grandmothers mystery neighbor who, whether he actually existed in the real world or not, was very real to a community of folks who had a lot of questions, but none of the answers. I dont have them either, but I found myself plotting.

Handsome Jack is a logger, nomad, and born dreamer. His young wife, Simone, has too many kids and never enough money to support or protect them. The family keeps on the move, shedding a grand total of twenty-seven homes. Their first child, Randy, is sensitive and brilliant and bold, protector of his younger siblings, the fearless star of their childhood adventures and misadventures—until something snaps inside him. The second child who comes a year after him, our narrator Barbara, is the lucky one, who can dream of getting out. Every time the family relocates, she feels “the hope in leaving and doing better next time.”Poverty, mental illness, sexual abuse, and injustice pursue them wherever they go. They live small-town life hard and suffer, most of all Randy. The great surprise of The Hope in Leaving isn’t that these characters descend increasingly into isolation and strife, but that despite this they remain a family, that there is always the spark of wit in their banter, and a kind of closeness no matter what happens, even a sense of normalcy. Gradually, the reader comes to understand why The Hope in Leaving is a book that had to be written. In it, Williams proves beyond doubt that there is one thing that can survive the worst of life and even death itself: love without judgment.

Markie's Pockets is a sweet story of a little boy. He walks around his neighborhood with his mom every day. On his short journeys, he finds ordinary objects that he places in his pockets to take home. These are his treasures. Your child will enjoy seeing what Markie finds and how, when his pockets are full, he manages to transport his treasures home. At the completion of the story, there is a memory question for your child to answer. Your child will feel proud realizing how much he remembers.