Julie Johnson

One year, many years ago, while teaching a grade 7-8 class, I wanted to address the power of narratives through short stories rather than novels. Unfortunately, short stories for this age group were few and far between and, worse: the examples that I did find were boring. I couldn't find any material that I thought would appeal to this Netflix-loving group of 12-13 year olds. So I asked my class: what would make a good short story? And I was told:...

Similar to the first collection (At The Crossroads), At The Doors is an assortment of playful, short poems that offer insight into the little moments of 'ordinary' life. Whether its arguing with yourself at the grocery store, answering the question 'how are you.' with 'I'm fine', or pondering over the place of a garden snail in the vastness of the universe, these 20 poems offer new perspectives on life's 'simple moments'. There are five doors to...

Do you ever... -lie awake at night with too many thoughts? -try to understand why things happened as they did? -attempt to label your habitual behaviours? -wonder what good might come from an argument on Facebook? The 24 short playful poems in this collection map out such moments (and more)... then hand them to you for your consideration. Events that seem benign and ordinary on the surface can sink us into a deeper knowing of ourselves. We can...

At the heart of THE DAISY CHAIN are Geoff and Marcus, who are partners in love and business, and own and manage the vegan restaurant, The Daisy Chain. With Winona, their part time employee, they endeavour to make the world a better place by offering locally sourced, organic vegan meals that appeal to even the most adamant meat eater. But Marcus wants more - more compassionate and ecologically minded people creating societal change now. Getting impatient...

Gemma Summers is unlucky in love. She's known it since third grade, when her first crush blew a spitball into her hair, and a decade-long string of bad dates, boring sex, and abysmal morning-afters has done nothing to improve her prospects. But when a random radio call-in contest lands her courtside tickets to the hottest playoff game of the season, Gemma's luck may finally be on the upswing, even if it doesn't exactly seem like it when the dreaded...

For Delilah Sinclair, catching a man's attention has never been a problem. It's the part that comes later-the happily-ever-after part-that always seems to trip her up. All her friends may be settling down, but this fiery redhead has no intentions of ever being tamed . . . Until she meets a man just as wild. Luca "Blaze" Buchanan is the best fighter to come out of Boston in years. Men want to be him, women want to be with him, and no one smart...

Phoebe West has been head-over-heels in love with her brother's best friend for as long as she can remember. Not that he's bothered to notice. Despite several mortifying attempts at seduction and a decade's worth of unrequited pining, nothing Phoebe does seems to make any impact on the man she's obsessed over since her bra-stuffing days. She knows that it's time to let him go, though just the thought is nearly enough to shatter her. Nathaniel "Nate"...

The Memory Factory introduces an English-speaking public to the significant women artists of Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century, each chosen for her aesthetic innovations and participation in public exhibitions. These women played important public roles as exhibiting artists, both individually and in collectives, but this history has been silenced over time. Their stories show that the city of Vienna was contradictory and cosmopolitan: despite...

Barney shows how to make cleaning fun, from painting the caboose, to washing windows, to putting away toys! See Riff learn new tricks when his litterbot leaves him in a heap of a mess. All the friends help BJ out of a big spill, and they work together to host a fancy tea party. Everything's better with friends, and when teamwork helps with clean-work, the world sparkles and shines!

When Barney and his friends go to the beach, the group discovers all sorts of tee-riffic things to do! From flying kites to wind-surfing to a trip in a sailboat.