Bringing local stories home for the holidays

Although Pottersfield Press has been helping to tell local stories since 1979, the Lawrencetown Beach-based publishing house has — perhaps surprisingly — never put out a Christmas anthology.

“It’s been sort of a tradition for publishers in the Maritimes to do Christmas anthologies,” says local publisher and author Lesley Choyce, adding that he avoided the temptation for more than 40 years until his longtime editor, Julia Swan, urged him to get into the festive spirit.

“Over the years, we’ve published maybe 300 books in total,” says Choyce. “[So] there already was, amongst the Pottersfield writers, quite a number of stories that were a celebration of winter or actually touching on Christmas.”

As such, Choyce and Swan have compiled and released an eclectic compilation of local fiction and non-fiction tales called Down Home for Christmas: Holiday Stories from Atlantic Canada.

Capturing an array of regional short winter-themed narratives, Choyce says the collection of East Coast stories is ideal reading over the festive season.

“They are all good stories [and] it came to be a pretty hefty collection,” says Choyce, noting he and Swan combed through the Pottersfield archives and selected more than two dozen festive tales, new and old. “I think the spirit of the book kind of transcends the usual clichés about Christmas — or at least, that’s what I like to think.”

Featuring a rich tapestry of work from contemporary local scribes like Halifax award-winning author Janice Landry and Mi’kmaw educator and advisor Theresa Meuse, Down Home for Christmas features everything from fiction to memoirs to children’s stories, all carrying a winter or festive theme.

“We’re trying to cover all ages [and we were] just looking for something that touched on — if I can use the phrase — the spirit of Christmas in the Maritimes,” says Choyce about how he selected the collection.  “For the most part, that turns out to be something rural I would say. Even people living in cities, there’s this sort of calling that often takes them back to family farms or something up in Pictou County or all around.”

Notably, the book also includes classic tales such as Governor General award-winning novelist Hugh MacLennan’s 'An Orange from Portugal' which recalls the thrill of a simple Christmastime tradition along with Farley Mowat’s 'Snow' which is a meditation on the seasonal ice crystals that help shape the spirit of Christmas.

An author of more than 100 books of literary and young adult fiction, non-fiction and poetry, Choyce even contributed one of his own works to Down Home for Christmas.  A children’s tale called 'Far Enough Island,' the short story is a nostalgic narrative about a girl who loses her heroic dog on an island at the start of winter.  

“I wanted at least one dog story in there. Dogs and Christmas always seem to go together hand in hand [or] foot in paw, I suppose,” says Choyce, noting 'Far Enough Island' was based on a true story. “I still have these images of inlets and harbours in Nova Scotia freezing up in the winter. Maybe this isn’t going to happen anymore because of climate change but freezing up in the winter and this connection that happens so that you have this sheet of ice going from an island to the shore.

“I think that image still haunts me.”

It is just that celebration of uniquely local stories that fuels the fiction and non-fiction in Down Home for Christmas. In fact, not only does Choyce anticipate his collection of local festive stories will provide readers with a fresh selection of holiday-themed narratives, he hopes it helps reunite many readers back to local literature in general.

“I do see a kind of erosion of tradition. It’s inevitable here, we are swamped with international information, American information, everything on the Internet,” says Choyce, adding he has been a Nova Scotian since 1978.  “I think a book like this is really still keeping an eye on the past and saying there is something unique about who we are, where we live [and] the stories that grandfathers had here.”

For more information on Down Home for Christmas, visit the website.