Recent Works

New published works by some of our members or former members.

The Hardware: Leadership Tools and Tales

Michael Cloutier and Randi Madonik Skurka

The Hardware: Leadership Tools and Tales is a memoir-like leadership fable envisioned by Michael Cloutier, a retired pharmaceuticals executive, and co-written by Randi Madonik Skurka. It addresses contemporary challenges by incorporating fictionalized personal anecdotes in an engaging story, in order to demonstrate and teach principles of leadership.

The story opens with the protagonist, Brad, a business executive, receiving an invitation to be bestowed with an honorary degree by the University of Toronto at the spring convocation of its business school graduates. This is to be in recognition of his contribution to Canadian business and to the university, at which he served as an instructor and chief fundraiser for a new student learning centre. Each subsequent chapter contains flashbacks of events in Brad’s life, and related recollections or conversations about a leadership trait or “tool,” for example, trust, authenticity, integrity and generosity; these are summarized in key takeaways at the end of the chapter. The episodes unfold against the backdrop of his life’s trajectory, starting with childhood memories of the small town hardware store of his grandfather, which is about to be sold.

Readers will be left educated, entertained and inspired.

$21.99 CAN paperback
ISBN# 1771807520
Buy Now!

I’m Here: YA Stories of Identity

Beverley Brenna, ed.

“Readers of all sorts will find their place in these stories of community, struggle, acceptance and redemption. There’s room for all, there’s a place for all. Fling open the doors and the covers of this book–all are welcome here!” –DEBORAH ELLIS, acclaimed novelist and author of the new short story collection Go.

This collection includes nineteen brand new stories for teens from authors across Canada, including Ann Margaret Oberst. Although each reflects in some way the theme of identity, multiple genres and styles flourish side by side, their pages engaging the reader with brevity and power. From talented newbies to veteran virtuosos, these authors present a spectrum of teenagers who vigorously sing out, “I’m here!”

$17.95 CAN
ISBN# 0889957746
Buy Now!

Bad Juliet

by Giles Blunt

At a tuberculosis sanitarium in the Adirondacks, a young tutor falls in love with a mysterious woman who survived the Lusitania disaster.
“Bad Juliet will hold you in its grip from its opening pages, combining the pacing and twists of a thriller with the compelling characterizations and masterful prose of a writer at the top of his form.” — Nino Ricci, award-winning author of The Origin of Species

Recently jilted by his fiancé, Paul Gascoyne takes a job as a tutor to the patients at the Trudeau Sanitarium in upstate New York. There, in the icebound beauty of the Adirondack Mountains, he finds himself drawn to Sarah Ballard, a beautiful but enigmatic young woman, traumatized by her past aboard the ill-fated ship Lusitania. To rouse her out of her gloom, Paul encourages her to write a memoir.

As Paul reads her words, it gradually becomes clear that Sarah’s memories are a tangle of truth and fiction that he can’t begin to unravel. And yet he cannot overcome his attraction to her. When a terrible relapse leaves Sarah worried that she has little time left, she begs Paul to be the one person in the world who will truly know her.