A sweeping tale of life in Sault Ste. Marie from the 1930s through the Second World War. Clara Durling and her teenage daughter, Ivy, move to Sault Ste. Marie in 1932, where Clara is starting a job as head nurse at the local residential school. As Clara adjusts to life in the Soo, she discovers the town is a many-layered society. Clara works with Indigenous children who have been ripped from their communities and now live frightening, lonely lives in a crumbling building. While Clara struggles to deal with the despair at the school, Ivy makes a friend from the working-class Italian community and has a brush with the bootlegging underworld. After high school, Ivy heads to nursing school in Montreal but finds society's expectations for young women do not foster their self-reliance. As Ivy struggles with sexism and societal norms, she and Clara seek to bring humanity to those living at the margins of society.

The NQTeachers Survival Guide is a step-by-step manual on how to face the induction year which, for many primary and secondary teachers can be the most challenging of their career. It aims to smooth the teachers paths through a daunting list of tasks so that they persevere until the end of the year, pass with flying colours and confidently go on to enjoy satisfying and successful careers. It is written in a jargon-free language and packed with practical tips on how to cope with every issue from starting off on the right foot to establishing constructive relationships with pupils, colleagues, non-teaching staff, the head and parents, right through each step to the end of the year. There a list of positive, practical strategies for coping with behaviour management of even the least enthusiastic classes of pupils. It gives tips on lesson planning and how to cope the paper mountain, which teachers say increases every year. Even experienced teachers say that they are nervous taking assembly. There is a list of topics to make assemblies interesting for the pupils listening and the pupils performing, and tips on how to make each one run smoothly. Where do you start planning a school trip? Its all there - what to look for on your planning visit, the paperwork, tips on organization and great ideas on how to follow it up to enthuse the children and get maximum value from it. Report writing can be tedious. How do you write the truth without causing offence? There are suggestions for every issue to save the teacher thinking time. Teaching is an absorbing occupation. The NQTeachers Survival Guide reminds teachers to keep their eyes on the big picture so that they stay fresh and able to approach their work enthusiastically and go on to be confident teachers and an asset to their profession.

This collection of poems is my creative expressions of life and submissions. I am sharing my journey through this thing called life and all the experiences that have molded me into the woman I am today. My submissions are bits and pieces of the world and other people's lives as seen through my eyes. My journey is shared in the words of my poetry with each life experience that becomes more profound to me as I realize the Eternal Peace that I seek resides within.