The Speed of Mercy

by Afua Cooper; And I Alone Escaped to Tell You by Sylvia D. Hamilton; Dan Conlin, curator (brother), National Museum of Immigration at Pier 21; Brain Pickings by Maria Popova; Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes; Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition by Stephen C. Hayes, Dermot Barnes-Holmes, and Bryan Roche; Where Moose and Trout Abound: A Sporting Journal by Mike Parker; Seashores of the Maritimes by Merritt Gibson; words from my psychiatrist; David Lynch; stories from grandmothers; stories of old women; stories from girls; artwork of Marie Cameron, Mary Pratt, Emily Carr, and Gathie Falk; The Union Street Café Cookbook by Jenny Osburn; music of Tori Amos, Karl Orff’s “Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi”; Kate Bush, Beyoncé, Joy Division, the Verve, P. J. Harvey, Dolly Parton, Amanda Palmer, Rachel’s; wind and sea sounds; “Wayfaring Stranger” (traditional); Brian Stokesbury; Burial Grounds Care Society; Kings County Museum; Kate MacInnes Adams; North Mountain United Tapestry; Burlington; Harbourville; On Being with Krista Tippett, with Resmaa Menakem, “Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence”; What the Ocean Remembers: Searching for Belonging and Home by Sonja Boon; Under the Sea-Wind: A Naturalist’s Picture of Ocean Life by Rachel L. Carson; A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs by George A. Petrides; A Field Guide to Wildflowers: A Visual Approach by Roger Tory Peterson and Margaret McKenny; Karen Roberts Yoga; Yoga with Adriene; The Nova Scotia Atlas, Fifth Edition; Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey; All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr; The Age of Creativity: Art, Memory, My Father, and Me by Emily Urquhart.

CHRISTY ANN CONLIN is the author of two acclaimed novels, Heave and The Memento. She is also the author of the short fiction collection Watermark, which was a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award. Heave was a national bestseller, a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book, and a finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and the Dartmouth Book Award. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals including Best Canadian Stories, Brick, Geist, Room, and Numéro Cinq. Her short fiction has also been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the American Short Fiction Prize. Her radio broadcast work includes co-creating and hosting CBC Fear Itself, a national summer radio series. Christy Ann studied theatre at the University of Ottawa and screenplay writing at the University of British Columbia. She was born and raised in seaside Nova Scotia, where she still resides.