As My Sparks Fly Upward & Other stories
As My Sparks Fly Upward & Other stories

Author: Matthew St. Amand

Publisher: Waywords & Meansigns Press

Published: 2023-06-13

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1738231259

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Among the citizens of these stories you will find: The best man, secretly against his best buddy’s marriage, finds himself having to actually talk the panicking groom into going through with the ceremony. After Larry Dun’s name appears in the obituary section of the local newspaper, he goes to a bar to contemplate life as a ghost, and decide what second chances are about. Legendary rock ’n’ roller, Wolf Kearney, takes the stage and faces a tumultuous audience—a mirror reflection of his thirty years in the business—a crowd lost in the past?—finding himself more confined within the spotlight, than exalted by it. As a young man drives home one night following band practice, his car is nearly struck by something falling from a bridge overhead: an ordinary soda can-filled with ominous, though potentially profitable contents. Adam—living in Dublin, Ireland—one night sees a statue of Jesus Christ standing upon a pedestal inside a Plexiglas box. And attempts to rescue him. A rock ’n’ roll fan makes a pilgrimage to Bono’s estate in Killiney, County Dublin, where he reflects on art, fandom and hero worship.

As the Sparks Fly Upward
As the Sparks Fly Upward

Author: Gilbert Morris

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-11-08

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1439182744

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The trilogy The Winslow Breed serves as a prequel to the author’s highly successful House of Winslow series. As the Sparks Fly Upward is the final book in the trilogy. Young Colin Winslow grows up feeling altogether different from the rest of his family. Not bold and rough like his charismatic brother, Adam, or headstrong and spoiled like his sister, Adara, he is a gentle soul with a special love for natural things. His interest in animals, medicine, and healing brings him in contact with a strange woman who lives in the woods, Meg Caradoc. She teaches him the fine art of using a variety of herbs to quell sickness and pain. When Colin studies at Oxford, an eccentric but brilliant professor, Dr. Phineas Teague, guides the young man to a career in medicine. The formal knowledge Professor Teague imparts, combined with knowledge of Meg's herbal remedies, make Colin an insightful and successful doctor—one with the approving eye of Queen Elizabeth on him. Colin’s skill quickly earns him many patients, some highly placed in the courts of both his queen and her sister Mary Queen of Scots. This once shy and uncertain young man finds himself in the midst of court intrigue and a key player in quelling assassination plots and passing vital information to the queen’s court. When Colin faces his most difficult case—curing the wounds his brave brother suffered in battle—he must confront his attraction to Adam’s wife, his unsteady faith in God, and his command of medicine: will he abandon his noble role and succumb to temptation, or will he take his place as the new hero of the Breed of Winslow?

Shut Up & Keep Shopping
Shut Up & Keep Shopping

Author: Matthew St. Amand

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2011-01-20

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 1257093657

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WARNING: Slight nudity and reams of coarse language.Who would be dishonest enough to summarize this book? The author, I guess.It's Wikileaks of satire and outrage that only our wet diaper of a culture could provoke.It's the white glove of sarcasm striking the huge, rubbery beachball face of this ignoble world.It's Thanksgiving, 1959, with the Bush Family. It's "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday." It's the pope and Dick Cheney and Canadian Judas Prudence.It's man's inhumanity to man...

Gas of Tank: A Canadian Law Enforcement Odyssey 1979 - 2019
Gas of Tank: A Canadian Law Enforcement Odyssey 1979 - 2019

Author: Matthew St. Amand

Publisher: Waywords & Meansigns Press

Published: 2022-01-31

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 1778067514

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Todd Ternovan believed in keeping things simple: Marrying his college sweetheart, studying Early Childhood Education at Ryerson University, spending his professional life as a daycare teacher. It was a tidy plan. Except for one thing: Man plans and the gods laugh. To fund his life and education in Toronto, Todd worked a part-time job—as a corrections officer at the infamous Don Jail. Although he spent a few years working with kids, Todd’s experience in corrections propelled him into a 30-year career with the Ontario Provincial Police. Small-town policing isn’t just rescuing cats from trees and performing wellness checks. The concession roads and rural routes of southwestern Ontario are home to some incredibly kind, resilient people, and scene to some strange, tragic and heinous events. Todd dealt with them all, from the naked machete-wielding man who claimed to be Jesus Christ, to armed American fugitives, decades-old sexual assaults, harrowing traffic accidents, and even a year spent “Uncle Charlie” (undercover) investigating drug traffickers. The title derives from a motorcycle gang member who demonstrated his disdain for police by pulling a “wheelie” on his motorcycle following a traffic stop. The biker was charged with stunt driving. In his defense in court, the biker said, in a thick French accent: “It was not possible for me to a pull a ‘wheelie.’ I had a full gas of tank!” “Gas of Tank” embodies, for Todd, all the surreal, upside-down, unbelievable, description-defying experiences police face daily.

The Kilominator: Cycling Through a Global Pandemic In Search of Sanity & Stability
The Kilominator: Cycling Through a Global Pandemic In Search of Sanity & Stability

Author: Matthew St. Amand

Publisher: Waywords & Meansigns Press

Published: 2023-01-10

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1778067581

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I have struggled with my weight my entire adult life. Dwelling among cubicles for two decades, my sedentary existence saw my weight climb to nearly 300 lbs. The number is irrelevant, but the discomfort, desperation, and despair I lived with were all very real. Fast forward to the COVID-19 global pandemic, I came to a crossroads where I realized I could choose which “95” I wanted to be—eat, drink, and laze my way to 395 lbs., or battle the isolation and anxiety by getting on my bike and pedaling toward for 195 lbs. I chose the latter. Since May 2020, I have logged more than 65,000 kilometers on my bike. I am not a slick, spandexed cyclist practicing his art in pelotons. I am a lone, obsessed hobbyist.

When Sparks Fly
When Sparks Fly

Author: Helena Hunting

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1250624711

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Charming, hilarious, and emotional...When Sparks Fly is Helena Hunting at her very best! Avery Spark is living her best life. Between her friends, her sisters, and Spark House, the event hotel her family owns, she doesn’t have much time for anything else, especially relationships. She’d rather hang out with her best friend and roommate, Declan McCormick, than deal with the dating scene. But everything changes when she is in a car accident and needs someone to care for her as she heals. Declan avoids relationships, giving him a playboy reputation that he lives up to when he puts a one-night stand ahead of a promise he made to Avery. While he may not have been the one driving the car, he feels responsible for Avery’s injuries and is determined to make it up to her by stepping into the role of caretaker. Little did they know that the more time they spend in compromising positions, the attraction they’ve been refusing to acknowledge becomes impossible to ignore. When they finally give in to the spark between them, neither is prepared for the consequences. Their love is fragile and all it will take is a blow from the past to shatter it all.

Forever & a Day
Forever & a Day

Author: Matthew St. Amand

Publisher: Waywords & Meansigns Press

Published: 2023-12-19

Total Pages: 58

ISBN-13: 1738231291

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A chance meeting at a café one afternoon, I ran into an old girlfriend months after our years-long relationship ended. There was awkward talk of new jobs, new friends, and as I moved to say goodbye, there was one more piece of news: “I’m going to be an aunt,” she said. I looked at her. She shrugged, smiled sadly. “Deirdre’s pregnant. Two months, now.” The news echoed in my ears, quivered through my bones. I mouthed the words, Deirdre’s pregnant. Deirdre was seventeen years old. There seemed nothing more to say except goodbye and good luck. As I stepped into the sunlight, stunned and blinking, a murmur of longing and regret whispered through me. It continued unabated as I walked toward home, past my street, to the waterfront. All the while that voice welled until it surged through me like a cry… I cannot let this passing of affection happen without a word...

The Chronicles of Mamalujo
The Chronicles of Mamalujo

Author: Matthew St. Amand

Publisher: Waywords & Meansigns Press

Published: 2024-11-04

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 1998348032

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Nine thousand years ago, Mamalujo was a Chronicler living and working at Kinoomaagewaapkong, “the rocks that teach,” in what modern maps identify as Woodview, Ontario. He was the first technical writer. A poor hunter, afraid of the dark, born with twelve toes, Mamalujo was known as mayagenim, “quarefella,” “weirdo.” When the odoodem’s chieftain demanded that Mamalujo depict him on the Teaching Rock, an offense against the gods, Mamalujo produced a work of mocking satire. The chieftain fired Mamalujo as Chronicler, banishing him from the odoodem—a veritable death sentence. Mamalujo’s friend, the medicine man, was distraught. The woman Mamalujo secretly loved, Gracealujo (and who secretly loved him) was heartbroken. What ensued, however, as Mamalujo wandered out beyond the Anishinaabe hunting grounds, was a process of survival, discovery, and resurrection.

Let Us Go Then, You and I
Let Us Go Then, You and I

Author: Matthew St. Amand

Publisher: Waywords & Meansigns Press

Published: 2024-03-28

Total Pages: 24

ISBN-13:

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On June 30, 2023, Dave Hunter, father, husband, friend, philanthropist, entrepreneur, passed away at the age of 47. Two days later, in the predawn hours, as I prepared for a 100 kilometer cycling adventure, I felt Dave's presence and invited him to join me.