Books and Beyond

Doug Jordan, Arts’69, MBA’71, has been on a journey of change and transition in the last several years, beginning with the diagnosis, and then death, of his wife, Marlene, in 2017 from complications of breast cancer. Struggling with grief and loss he sought to find a new purpose in his life and a new identity, as author. His latest book, Travels With Myself, a mixture of anguish and irony, bitterness and humour, recounts his journey of discovery about grief, empathy, mental health, love and purpose; he hopes others will find meaning and understanding in it for themselves. You can discover more about his work at his website, AFSPublishing.ca.

Keith Garebian, PhD’73 (English), has a new work out: Mini Musings: Miniature Thoughts on Theatre and Poetry. The titles alone speak to the little book's uniqueness: they include Watching Your Father Die on Stage, Do Actors Love the Audience?, Can There Be Poetry After Donald Trump?, and Filthy Shakespeare. The mini musings bubble with a sense of wonder, excitement, and intimacy. This is Dr. Garebian’s 27th book.

Anna Frenkel, Artsci’16, Ed’17, has created a travel journal: Q & A a Day for Travelers. “After studying abroad,” she writes, “I decided to create a book to help people document their travels and plan new ones.” The book is a three-year guided journal that provides a question prompt each day. Writers answer a question each day and then see how their answers change. Whether you are hiking the Appalachian Trail or discovering secret corners of your hometown, the prompts in this journal will spur you to remember great trips, meals, people and all the odd moments and details that make travel so exciting. Your answers year-over-year will reveal what you love best about travel and what you should avoid, as well as documenting the journeys you have taken. Ms. Frenkel is a French language teacher and is studying to be a speech-language pathologist.

Neil Dukas, Artsci’83, published a new edition of his 2004 book A Military History of Sovereign Hawai’i. The book provides an overview of Hawai’i’s remarkable military history, beginning with its classical period as a sovereign nation and progressing through the political turmoil of the 19th century to its annexation, in 1898, by the United States. The 2020 edition reflects recent findings and new schools of thought, as well as new illustrations. Captain Dukas was recently appointed director of the non-profit Forum on Hawai‘i’s Military and Warrior Past.

Claudia (Brown) Coutu Radmore, BFA’84, is the author of rabbit, her fifth collection of poems. Ms. Radmore celebrates, and sometimes grieves, the unique inhabitants of our natural and human worlds in lines teeming with observation, curiosity, and appropriate wonder. Rife with detail and greedy for understanding, the poems in rabbit pulse with buoyant energy, the title poem alone an invitation to perceive “the other” and to be changed. A poem from her last volume, camera obscura, was included in The Best Canadian Poetry of 2019. A new collection, Park Ex Girl: Life with Gasometer, will be published later this year.

Lee Airton, Assistant Professor (Gender and Sexuality Studies in Education), is co-editor of Teaching about Gender Diversity, a collection of teacher-tested interdisciplinary lesson plans that provides K–12 teachers with the tools to implement gender-inclusive practices into their curriculum and talk to their students about gender and sex. Divided into three sections dedicated to the elementary, middle, and secondary grade levels, this practical resource provides lessons for a variety of subject areas, including English language arts, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), and health and physical education. The lessons range from reading aloud early literacy picture books that use gender-neutral language and highlight the gendered experiences of characters to engaging mathematics in the study of targeting gender terminology, stereotypes, and the social construction of binary gender.

Lance Triskle, Law’00, is the author of Guide to Martin’s Annual Criminal Code (third edition). The book assists students and professionals to successfully navigate Martin’s Annual Criminal Code. Examples from Martin’s are reproduced for the reader, including excerpts from the Criminal Code, the Offence Grid, and the Table of Cases. The Guide also includes exercises for readers to practise skills required for their research. Through learning how to review Martin’s more effectively, users learn to read other annotated texts. The Guide is ideal for students studying criminal law and criminal procedure.

T. J. Radcliffe, Sc’84, PhD’91 (Physics), is the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Ham: a medieval miscellany, a modern romance in verse inspired by the medieval tale of King Arthur’s famously courteous nephew, Sir Gawain, and his adventures fighting the Green Knight. A new story, rather than a re-telling, this work is both ribald and serious, sober and fun, creating a tale that is accessible to modern readers while paying homage to one of the great medieval romances.

Bruce MacGregor, Ed’70, is the author of Capital Recollections: A Baby Boomer Growing Up in Ottawa, a humorous, affectionate look at Ottawa in the 1950s and ’60s. These should ring a bell for Ottawa boomers: Cradle League Hockey; Elvis rocking the Auditorium; Squirrels vs. Yohawks; the Ottawa Exhibition; Saturday Date on CJOH television; the Pigskin Parade at Lansdowne Park; and much more. Revisit the birth of television and rock ‘n’ roll, and remember the many Ottawa personalities in the media, music, and sports from that unique period of astonishing growth and change.

Robert Clark, Ed’79, is the author of Down Inside: Thirty years in Canada’s Prison Service. During his career with Corrections Canada, Robert Clark rose through the ranks from student volunteer to deputy warden. He worked with some of Canada’s most notorious prisoners, including Tyrone Conn and Paul Bernardo, and he dealt with escapes, lockdowns, murders, suicides, and a riot. But he also arranged;ice hockey games in a maximum-security institution,sat in a darkened gym watching movies with 300 inmates, took parolees sightseeing, and consoled victims of violent crime. In this book, Mr. Clark challenges the popular belief that a “tough on crime" approach makes communities and prisons safer, arguing instead for humane treatment and rehabilitation and for an end to the abuse of solitary confinement.

Many people at Queen’s will remember Artur Zylinski Arthur, an emeritus professor of psychology who died in 1990. But few of his colleagues or students would know about his life as a teen in Lithuania during the Second World War. Artur was conscripted, against his will, to work for the Nazis. He escaped and was helped by the French Resistance before fleeing to the U.K. and joining the Polish Forces. Artur’s daughter-in-law, Sandra Arthur, has written a historical novel based on Artur’s early life. Against My Will: Lithuania to Freedom was written using anecdotes from family members as well as historical research. after 15 years of piecing together Artur’s story, Sandra Arthur used the opportunity of being in quarantine to finish her novel. The work was a true family project; husband Richard Arthur, Sc’87, helped edit and proofread the manuscript, and their son Alex designed the book cover.

Don Hutchinson, Artsci’82, has published his second book: Church in Society: First-Century Citizenship Lessons for Twenty-First-Century Christians. In storyteller style, he shares a real how-we-live-life-today narrative, applying lessons from the teachings of Jesus and life of the apostle Paul to our understanding of Christian exercise of citizenship. The text weaves its way into lessons on generosity, business practices, politics, media engagement and environmental stewardship. Mr. Hutchinson studied history and politics at Queen’s, law at UBC (JD’88), and theology with the Salvation Army and at Canada Christian College and School of Graduate Theological Studies. Church in Society is available from major booksellers and at donhutchinson.ca.

Allan Hedberg, PhD’69 (Psychology), has completed his 12th book, The Psychology Missive: A Memo to Law Enforcement Officers in a World of Stress and Violence. Dr. Hedberg examines the high-stress occupation of law enforcement and offers practical advice for successful careers in the field

Learn more about books by Hedberg

Karen Spafford-Fitz, Artsci’86, Ed’87, has released her sixth book. Taking the Lead is a novel for 10- to 13-year-olds. When track star Jonas lands in the school office, his principal notices that Jonas has not fulfilled his volunteer requirements. She kicks him off the track team and strips him of his captaincy. She later makes him a deal: Jonas can compete at the final track meet, but he must first complete his volunteer hours by training a vision- and mobility-impaired teen for a 5k race. A former junior-high teacher and an avid runner herself, Ms. Spafford-Fitz is delighted that her first sports story showcases running and athletes of various abilities.

Pamela Haley, Artsci’79, MPA’97, is the author of Escape from Shambles County, a humorous work of fiction centred around a murder in the dysfunctional community. Hired to modernize the county library, Damares Mutch has to deal with a libellous press, a hostile county council, and the underhanded tactics of community members. And when she finds a body in the library, things go from bad to worse.

Ainsley Hawthorn, Artsci’04, (PhD, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale), is the co-editor of Distant Impressions: The Senses in the Ancient Near East. Although we often treat the senses as though they are immutable, fundamental properties of our physiology, the way we parse our sensory experiences is dictated by our cultural context. Accordingly, the essays in Distant Impressions explore the social aspects of sensation in the ancient Near East, inviting the reader to move beyond the physiological study of sensation to an examination of its cultural meanings. Dr. Hawthorn is an author, cultural historian, and multidisciplinary artist based in St. John’s, N.L.