Problematic Press is pleased to announce a couple of recent upgrades.
Regularly, our books have been available to purchase through Amazon, in both print and Kindle editions.
Now, Problematic Press titles are available on Google Books through Google Play, as well, meaning our ebooks are easily available to over 2 billion Android and Chromebook users!
Plus, we’ve upgraded our online shop to provide our titles as .pdf files, so readers can enjoy reading our ebooks from nearly any platform!
Such deeds are worth a series of exclamations!
We believe this is a decent way to level up, at least.
Now, our fiction, non-fiction, and poetry can be accessed by more readers than ever before.
Problematic Press is thrilled to reveal that our next publication will be Girly Muckle and the Queer Hands, a novel by Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton with illustrations by Nicole Leona Smith.
Girly Muckle and the Queer Hands
There can be much more to a person than what meets the eye, and Girly Muckle can vouch for that.
She’s not like most other teens. She’s a selkie. And her best friends are an adlet and a shapeling.
Together with her besties, these young punks are the Queer Hands.
This is just the beginning.
Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton
Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton is an author, a playwright, a performer, and an absolute treasure with the voice of a tempest.
Born in North West River and raised in Marystown, her connections to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador resonate throughout her works.
Her plays are regularly produced across the province, and her previous books include the award-winning They Let Down Baskets (Killick Press), Rants, Riffs and Roars (Creative Book Publishing), and This is the Cat (Creative Book Publishing). Her memoir, Love, Life, is forthcoming from Breakwater Books.
Nicole Leona Smith is an emerging visual artist who divides her time between Newfoundland and her home in Cambridge, Ontario. Her illustrations are simply delightful.
Until now, she has been best known for her writing and her work in theatre.
She is also drafting her first novel with support from the Ontario Arts Council.
Indeed, as the gift-giving season approaches, consider how those you love might love to receive one of our books!
What’s that you say? “Shut up about the holidays; it’s too early for all that now,” you say. Well, with online ordering you have to think about shipping and potential delays, and we wouldn’t want anything to come between your loved ones and the Problematic Press title(s) they have their hearts set on!
So, no matter what you choose to celebrate or refuse to celebrate, Problematic Press has a special little something for your special little someone!
Subtle and charming, bright and playful, The True Story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff: The Troll’s Side of the Story reimagines the classic tale to reflect on the perspective of the kind troll who falls prey to the prejudice of the eldest goat Gruff. Illustrations by Myles Reichel give this tale life. Plus, this edition also includes Sir George Webbe Dasent‘s translation of the classic folktale. This book is best suited for adults reading to young children, for early readers, and for all of us children-at-heart.
Deep beneath the scarred and scorched surface of the Earth, the last of us remain.
The Cavern is deep, dark, and damp. The city is busy, expansive, industrious. Technology has been salvaged, scavenged from the surface, and repurposed to a new fashion. Survival comes in the form of the shunt, drilled deep into the skull. A device that takes all the pain away, and lays it on the shoulders of one poor soul.
The Sufferer. An old man, dying beneath the tree of tears. And when his heart breaks, it will spell doom for us all.
Nicholas Morine was born and raised in Gaspereau, Nova Scotia. Words are his livelihood. He has written many words on a range of subjects, from tech to fashion. Having returned to Nova Scotia, he continues to write non-fiction and fiction. Montag Press published his debut novel, Punish the Wicked: A Dystopian Horror. Problematic Press is proud to present Cavern: City in the Dark, his second novel.
Robert Hayman’s Quodlibets, Lately Come over from New Britaniola, Old Newfoundland is a collection of witty, poetic verses that were penned while he served as governor in colonial Harbour Grace, Newfoundland between 1618 and 1628. His is likely the first English poetry penned in North America.
And, his work is quite impressive. Containing original poetry as well as his translations of pieces by John Owen and Francois Rabelais, Quodlibets reflects on thieves and knaves, good wives and whores, as well as the untamed beauty of Newfoundland. Hayman’s poetry exposes his love for Newfoundland, inviting the adventurous and hopeful to settle this rock. The language for this edition has been updated by David Reynolds to facilitate reading for modern audiences yet preserve the poetic voice of the author.
While playing a silly game, four bored yachtsmen find a mysterious copper cylinder bobbing along the sea. They soon discover the briny cylinder contains a massive script, a journal of sorts, detailing the adventures of Adam More, a sailor lost at sea. Examining the script reveals More’s incredible story of drifting across the ocean, sailing to lost lands, encountering giant beasts, and meeting truly peculiar people. This satirical tale is sure to entertain!
De Mille was a Canadian scholar and author. He pioneered Canadian science fiction and fantasy with his masterpiece, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder. De Mille had many lofty goals for his fantastic satire, and he struggled to accommodate all of them, leaving the denouement somewhat abrupt in his ultimate manuscript. Nevertheless, what remains is a thought-provoking tale of absurd wonder that seeks to challenge our most deeply held values. The story was first published posthumously as a serial by Harper’s Weekly in 1888, eight years after the author’s death.
The Problematic Press edition of James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder features a Foreword and Annotations by David Reynolds. Reynolds briefly introduces the author and the novel while his end notes reflect on interesting elements of the text and reference scholarly works.
Vester Vade Mecum: A Collection of Short Fiction is a collection to delight educators and pupils alike. It contains a variety of important short works of English literature, featuring authors such as Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, Pauline Hopkins, Stephen Leacock, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and others. Edited by David Reynolds, the text contains contextual information about each author and story as well as questions to provoke critical reflection.
Vester Vade Mecum is a Latin phrase that means “you go with me.” As the title of this textbook, that phrase carries multiple meanings. It indicates that this is a manual that mindful students will carry with them in their studies. In relation to the enduring nature of great stories, the title alludes that these are tales we often recall in our own reflections. In relation to the nature of storytelling, it suggests how the author leads the reader along their journey.
Superheroes: An Analysis of Popular Culture’s Modern Myths by David Reynolds is a semiotic and cultural anthropological interrogation of popular North American superhero narratives, such as those of Superman, Spider-Man, and Batman, that provides insight into how media’s messages influence the culture’s ethical values. Since emerging in the late 1930s, the superhero has become a pervasive figure in North American popular culture. As an extension of ideas presented by Friedrich Nietzsche, Joseph Campbell, and Umberto Eco, this dissertation argues that superhero tales must be regarded as modern mythology. It follows that people observe and learn social norms of justice from such narratives, since these ideals are intrinsic to the tales. In investigating the superhero’s role as a contemporary figure of myth, this project focuses primarily on three areas: an account of the history of the superhero from 1938 to present; an examination of the cultural functions of contemporary superhero narratives; and, an interrogation of vigilantism, responsibility, and justice in these narratives and how those concerns further relate to ideologies and practices in North American culture.
If you aren’t in the St. John’s region of Newfoundland and Labrador, then you can find print and Kindle copies of our titles online from the Problematic Press Shops (CAN and US). Otherwise, you might find us pushing books with a table at the St. John’s Farmers’ Market. We hope to see you there!
From all of us at Problematic Press to all of you, we hope your holiday season is full of joy and merriment… and reading!
