Merilyn Simonds: 10 books

In a dark and stifling Kingston attic overflowing with old letters, pamphlets and clippings, an incredible discovery was made: scores of flimsy sheets of paper, hastily scribbled upon—a clandestine correspondence between a schoolgirl living in the village of Portsmouth in 1919 and a convict imprisoned...

An intimate narrative exploring the past, present, and future of books Four seismic shifts have rocked human communication: the invention of writing, the alphabet, mechanical type and the printing press, and digitization. Poised over this fourth transition, e-reader in one hand, perfect-bound...

A graceful and sharply observed book of inspiration that uses the garden as its central muse A New Leaf traces a year of growing seasons at The Leaf, Merilyn Simonds' acreage in eastern Ontario. A lifelong gardener, Simonds works the soil and the soul for wide-ranging revelations about everything...

An intoxicating debut novel that twines the lives of two women on the same land, a century apart. Alyson Thomson has left the city for a simpler life on an abandoned farm with her lover, Walker, a potter. Wandering there, she uncovers, in the ruins of a log cabin, the writings of a young woman...

What is a garden? A yearning to bring nature close? Or a bid for total control?  The Paradise Project explores in 17 short-short stories the human response to the planted world. Meet the minor diplomat who populates the earth with his lurid purple-fruited plant; the woman encased in a circling...

On the sudden death of her husband, Mary Ann sells her worldly possessions and sets off to visit seven people she has never met.   Originally published in the anthology Seventeen Women Undress a Man, published in Germany (2005) and in The Netherlands (2007), this story was published...

A whimsical, provocative romp through a woman’s life with penises.   Originally published in the anthology In the Flesh, edited by Lynne van Luven and Kathy Page, Brindle & Glass (2012). I didn’t know what to expect. Not a pale, soft snail curled on a taut peach...

Following the death of an uncle, a woman moves through a CT scanner to the brink of  her own mortality.   Originally published in Going Some Place: Creative Nonfiction Across Canada, edited by Lynne Van Luven, Coteau Books (2000).   Beep. Take a breath...

To whom do we offer refuge — and why? After a life that rubbed up against the century’s great events in New York City, Mexico, and Montreal, 96-year-old Cassandra MacCallum is surviving well enough, alone on her island, when a young Burmese woman contacts her, claiming to be kin. Curiosity,...