WINDSOR, N.S. — Surrounded by a couple dozen interested supporters and readers, Anne Bishop reads a few selections from her new novel, Under The Bridge, her first work of fiction, at the Windsor Regional Library on May 26.
The Hants County author said it was important to show off her latest work here during her book tour, which she affectionately referred to as “my library.”
“The vast majority of the reading I do come from the shelves here,” Bishop said following a Q&A from the audience. “Thanks to the wonders of inter-library loan, they can bring me any book I want.”
Her first public reading was a bit closer to her home at the Hantsport Library in April and she’s hoping to do a few more readings and signings around the province in the coming months.
For Bishop, an accomplished non-fiction author and thinker, writing a novel has been a goal of hers for many years, and to see it in print now has been like a dream come true.
“It’s taken me a long time to get the nerve to actually do it,” she said with a laugh, noting that she’d been working on Under The Bridge for 10 years. “Fiction is complex, even more so than non-fiction.”
Under The Bridge follows Lucy, a community activist that worked with Halifax’s most vulnerable, who has now found herself on the receiving end of those services. Homeless, starving and in dire straits, Lucy has to struggle with her new reality.
The title Under The Bridge refers to both where homeless people often have to seek refuge in Halifax, and also the metaphor of letting the problems of the past go.
Bishop said the character of Lucy is partly based on her work and life experience as an advocate for the homeless and vulnerable in Halifax, using the lens of “what if this happened to me?”
During the question and answer period, Bishop acknowledged that she was writing from a point of privilege, having never been homeless herself, but it’s something she’s tried to capture with responsibly and care; not exploiting those in these types of situations.
More information on the novel can be found here, and it’s currently available at independent bookstores across the province.