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Is there a purpose for the extra "p" in "shopped"? Does the letter "e" in "prince" have a function? Is there a reason for spelling "muscle" with a silent letter "c"? Why are the letters "cc" in "accident" and "account" pronounced differently? Why does the letter "e" in "bake" disappear from "baking"?These are just a few of the mysteries of English spelling that Trevor Schindeler, a lifelong student of the English language, explores in this unique book. He answers these questions and many others in a clear and understandable fashion by setting out the structures and conventions that govern English spelling.In this age of smartphones with spell checking capacities, some people question the need to learn about spelling. There are, however, benefits to understanding how spelling works beyond getting words typed out correctly. Spelling remains vital because it forms a foundation for both reading and writing. A good knowledge of our English spelling system is required to read accurately and to write proficiently. Spelling skills are fundamental to good communication, and open the door to vast stores of human knowledge.This book will be helpful to anyone who wants to improve their understanding of written English including teachers, English instructors, students seeking to master the English language, and general readers. It sets out, in a systematic and comprehensive manner, all of the spelling patterns found in written English. Becoming aware of a spelling pattern will help you to notice it when reading and, eventually, to apply it when writing. In time, reading and writing skills will improve, and a deeper appreciation of our complex spelling system will be acquired.This book also describes the structures and conventions that govern the spelling of words. While dictionaries tell us how to spell a word, this book explains why! MAJOR SECTIONS OF THE BOOKThe Structures of English SpellingLong Vowel Spelling PatternsShort Vowel Spelling PatternsOther Vowel Spelling PatternsConsonant Spelling PatternsConsonant BlendsPrefixesRoot WordsSuffixesGrammatical ConsiderationsPluralsPossessivesOnsets and RimesCompound and Hyphenated WordsContractionsAcronyms

In this enchanting novel, VC, a onetime aspiring pugilist become university professor, explores the meaning of life both in this world and in those worlds still to come. Together with Moreen, the love of his life, their daughter Aila, and their families and friends---not to mention characters out of the pages of his own novel, somehow come to life---VC embarks on a journey that will test the limits of true love. Readers will come away from Finding My Way Home struck by the author's ability to balance humour and pathos, joy and tragedy---and with much to mull over in their own lives.

For decades David J. Forsyth has researched his ancestors' stories, assembling an enormous cache of records and anecdotes. Although history is filled with the tales of the great and the powerful, much less is known about the lives of ordinary people. Forsyth's goal in his research and in the writing of Alice and the Machine Gunner is to address that gap.Alice and the Machine Gunner is a conscientious blend of fact and fiction, a multigenerational account of the Geherty family based on information gleaned from civil, parish, military and personal records, as well as the reminiscences of the late Alice Geherty.The author begins with Peter Geherty, a 19th-century Irish linen weaver, and concludes with the life story of his great-granddaughter Alice, a London-born war bride. In 1919, she emigrated to Hamilton, Ontario, with little hope of ever seeing her parents again.This engrossing work of creative nonfiction brings to life generations of people now departed, as well as providing a vivid portrait of the city of Hamilton, Ontario in the first half of the 209th century. In the process, it opens the door to a deeper understanding of the past.

In Water Voices, author Sheldon Clark presents a moving series of spiritual reflections grouped together under three general themes: Calm, Storm, and Peace. Readers will find both insight and reassurance in these meditations and remembrances, spanning the lifespan from birth to final years. Evocative illustrations enhance the meaning of the poems and prayers included in the book.A word from the author:In the summer of 1958, my brother and I rode horseback into the hill ring surrounding a cattle ranch near Gunnison, Colorado. We followed a creek to its spring, dismounted, and we and our horses refreshed ourselves with cool clear water. We felt history flowing down our throats. We felt at one with the eternal source sending cleansing blood through our veins. We gave thanks for this natural baptism. I could only wish that people everywhere could give thanks for the unmerited gift of pure water. Water voices are heard in varieties of music from classical, gospel, country and western, folk, easy listening, and rock. Water voices are seen in drawings, paintings, and photography, as representative, abstract, and mood inspiring. Water voices in literature appeal to the five senses and express inner thoughts. Words are the instruments used to articulate passionate love, reflect on grief, loss, danger, and death, and are intentionally chosen to provoke a response. Water voices are as constant as sunrise and sunset. They possess character. They are as soothing as divine mercy. They are as gentle as the lion that lies down with the lamb, as violent as unbridled war and storms at sea, as miraculous as spiritual conversion, as nourishing as Mother Earth, and as mysterious as love. In listening to water voices, we hear the divine replenishing Creation, itself. The narrative poems in Water Voices were inspired to acknowledge each person's experience as they bring their welcoming capabilities to our essential source of existence. In these uncertain times of climate change, it is incumbent upon humanity to listen to water voices as friendly sounds ever so subtly appealing for human help to achieve the goals of balance, conservation, restorative justice, and mutually assured survival.

The terrifying Wîhtikow Rex takes centre stage in this exciting second book in the Lukas Encounters series. The mysterious creature-a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton that Lukas and his cousin KC accidentally bring to life-is described in Cree mythology as a ravening monster that grows as it consumes its victims. The adventures begin when Lukas and KC meet paleontologist Mekwen Calf Robe at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. From Mekwen they learn that Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park is not far from the Johnson family farm where KC lives. She agrees to show them various rock formations and maybe even some dinosaur fossils at the park. But as Lukas and KC begin exploring the park on their own, they stray into areas Mekwen warned them to avoid, and before you can say "Tyrannosaurus rex," a menace as old as time is nipping at their heels!

Recently hired as the assistant librarian at Masterson College, Eric Merton is thrown into a bewildering maelstrom of murder and mayhem. It begins with the brutal slaying of the head librarian's administrative assistant. Meanwhile controversy arises about an embargoed journal that may hold a crucial medical secret. As the bodies pile up, will Eric be able to figure out the killer's identity before he, too, becomes yet another victim?Masterson Murders draws on author Peter Abbot's long experience in academic life to draw a compelling portrait of a university library under siege. It's a whodunit unlike any other, with surprises right to the very last line.

In this moving novella, Peter Abbot has penned a moving meditation on what it means to live --- and to die. In short order, Derrick deals with the passing of his Auth Martha, home from South Africa to die; the loss of his best friend "Pip"; the implications of hundreds of children's graves newly found at former residential school sites; and the grisly end of his long-lost uncle, gunned down on the sidewalk outside Derrick's house.What does it all mean? Does it mean anything at all? Exeunt, like all of Abbot's works, looks unflinchingly at the dark corners of the human condition, yet finds hope in the hidden strengths of the human heart.

Glenn Gould's life as a musician begins as a fairy-tale, as his very first recording --- the Goldberg Variations --- skyrockets the young Canadian to the top of the music world, as a must-see and must-hear concert-pianist with sold-out performances all around the world. And then, at the height of his powers and his popularity, he makes a decision about his music and his life which splits the music world right down the middle, and remains controversial to this day.

Edmund Altenkirch was one of the great pioneers of refrigeration technology and thermoelectricity. This book represents the first extended discussion of his work to be made available in English. It provides detailed coverage of both Altenkirch's theoretical and practical work in the field, ranging in time from before the First World War to his death in 1953. Altenkirch's research not only underlay advancements in refrigeration technology and thermoelectric power generation in the first half of the twentieth century, but also provided the basis for developments in green energy production and utilization that are occurring today.

In this charming collection of stories, John Steckley describes the (mainly) imaginary adventures of his granddaughter Mia. Whether it's foiling bullying at school or a robbery at a restaurant, investigating a case of baby-snatching carried out by aliens, or saving a pair of orphaned bear cubs, Mia's adventures are sure to entertain readers young and old.I was very fortunate to have been able to spend a lot of time with my grandfathers when I was growing up. Both of them took me fishing, for example, and put up with my lack of ability to cast. They were my heroes. But they were in their early sixties when I was born. When Mia was born I was 70. She was our first grandchild. Her birth and presence in our lives were exciting to us, her Omi (grandmother) and Opa (grandfather), and cherished memories soon were created. Alas, we probably won't have the years together with Mia that my grandfathers had with me....When I retired as a college professor in 2015, I began writing short stories, along with my usual nonfiction books (several published by Rock's Mills Press) and articles. It was only natural that Mia would prove to be an inspiration for story after story. It wasn't long before I wrote enough of them to make up a book. I felt it was important to publish such a book. In that way, when Mia has grown up, she will have the book to remind her of her grandmother Angie (the illustrator) and me and of our time together in her early years. I am also hoping that grandparents who read the book will be inspired to write their own short stories about their grandchildren!---From the Author

As the author notes in his introduction, this fascinating and insightful book is "family history with a context." Placing the lives of his parents, John Hair and Alice Runnalls, at the centre of the narrative, Dr. Hair explores the history and culture of Southwestern Ontario, that great peninsula of fertile farmland lying between Lake Erie and Lake Huron.Dubbed "Souwesto" in the 1960s by artist Greg Curnoe and playwright James Reaney, the region was home to the kind of people that Alice Munro writes about in her short stories---people mostly of Scots-Irish descent; Protestant; practical, hard-working people attached to the land, defining their community as their school section and their social milieu as their rural Methodist or Presbyterian church.Souwesto Lives tells their story, beginning in the first days of European settlement, continuing through the clearing of "the bush" and into the twentieth century, when the coming of the telephone and rural electrification marked the beginning of social and technological changes that would change the area forever. It is a story of the movement from country to city, from family farm to suburban lot, told with verve and affection.Natives of Souwesto, historians and genealogists, and the general reader all will find much to treasure in this detailed portrait of a region, its people, and a family.

A charming story of Christmas magic from the author of John Passfield: Saturday Morning, nominated for the 2022 ReLit novel awardAs writer John Passfield is driving home from a December book-discussion meeting and thinking about the Christmas topics that were discussed---in particular, Dickens, who wrote a novella which transformed the world's conception of Christmas---he suddenly finds himself sitting in a sleigh pulled by Rudolph and eight tiny reindeer. What an excellent opportunity to ask San-ta about a seventy-year-old mystery---the mystery of the missing cowboy shirt!

The Ventriloquist gives us four fearless and seminal works by one of Canada's master poets. A scathing indictment of war and its ravages, it's also a testament to the power of poetic narrative. Gary Geddes is known for his first-person narrative poems and "seamless impersonations." Those figures reaching out from the near or distant past to have their story told include a youth in charge of horses on a doomed and bloody mission to the New World during the Spanish conquest; a so-called "mad bomber" who dies in a washroom of the House of Commons when the dynamite he is carrying explodes; a wily and outrageous Chinese sculptor and his legion of warrior subjects struggling against imperial edicts to conform; and POWs in Hong Kong and Japan in World War II doing their damnedest to survive, a struggle that continued back home in the face of shocking neglect. Geddes finds the phrase that best describes this kind of historical rescue work is "the ventriloquism of history," but jokingly admits that he's never quite sure if he's ventriloquist or dummy. The critics have no doubt about this, however, calling his work "stunning," "wonderful," "breathtaking in its imaginative reach and verbal dexterity." Robert Kroetsch described War & Other Measures as "the kind of poem poets are only supposed to be able to dream ... the sustained calibration is beautiful. I didn't know the long poem could be so taut.... The years of art and craft are in the book." Hong Kong Poems prompted Michael Estok to say in a review in The Fiddlehead: "It is a weighty and worthy and admirable undertaking.... [Geddes's] book of elegies puts him on the same level of poetic intensity (perhaps he even surpasses it) of Milton's 'Lycidas' or Tennyson's In Memoriam." These words of praise are reflected in the awards the books received on first publication: the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize, Writers Choice Award, National Magazine Gold Award, and Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Americas Region). The Terracotta Army, which won the latter award, was also dramatized and broadcast by CBC and BBC radio.REVIEWS"A powerful indictment of war, showing through narrative power and lyrical intensity the personal cost of armed conflict.... Like [John] McCrae, Geddes speaks for the dead, reclaiming their voices, their stories, and a forgotten part of their lives. And what they have to tell us isn't pretty or patriotic. We are not told to 'take up the quarrel' or grasp the torch of war, but to beware, especially of language. The epigraph to Geddes' collection is a quote by Margaret Atwood: 'War happens when language fails.' If only our world leaders would exchange literature and not missiles, we might be able to avoid the destruction of life, spirit, and dignity that happens in war. Geddes' The Ventriloquist: Poetic Narratives from the Womb of War should be first on their, and our, reading lists." ---Kevin Bushell, The Fiddlehead

Today's turbulent, ever-changing world has made the practice of internal communications more important than ever, as both private and public sector organizations deal with such challenges as global pandemics, remote and hybrid work arrangements, and innovative technologies-including the nascent "metaverse." The result is a new and growing opportunity for public relations practitioners, as the field of internal communications diverges from traditional human resources roles and functionalities.Internal Communications in Canada provides a concise, cutting-edge introduction to the field. Intended for students and junior practitioners, this exciting resource-created by Canadian practitioners for Canadian practitioners-covers a variety of key topics, including:The basics of organizational theoryPublics, cultures, and climates within organizationsBest practices for working in groupsEmployee engagementCommunications models and theoriesInternal communications researchThe importance of privacy considerations in internal communicationsMultigenerational communicationsCrisis communicationsDiversity, equity, and inclusion in internal communicationsCommunications and change managementCommunications within a collective-agreement environmentNew social-media approaches to internal communicationsChapters contributed by PR practitioners David Scholz, Sarah K. Jones, Colleen Killingsworth, William Wray Carney, and Danielle Kelly provide additional layers of insight and analysis. The result is-as Daniel Granger points out in his Foreword-an important addition to the study of public relations in Canada.