Joanna M. Weston


Author photo used by permission of Phil Walmsley

About Joanna...

Born in England, she is now living in Shawnigan Lake, BC. She is married to Robert, an accountant, and they have three sons, 

... and two cats, Alice and Chaucer.

Writing

. . . Online and in print:

 

A SUMMER FATHER - poetry

      A Summer Father is a readable, accessible book, a timely reminder of the personal and universal consequences of war. Weston’s poems, which often begin with epigraphs from John Jarmain’s own poetry, evoke not only the World War Two battlefields where her father fought – El Alamein, Tobruk, Tunis, Sicily, Normandy –  but also the British landscape of her childhood where the sounds of enemy planes anti-ack-ack fire, and bursting bombs were a nightly torment.

Frontenac House   $15.95

ISBN: 1-897181-05-1

THOSE BLUE SHOES

         middle reader for ages 7-12

         When Meg tries on a pair of blue shoes in Edward Swann’s shoe store, she is whirled into another life and another time. She meets Hannah who demands Meg’s blue shoes because, she says, they are hers. Meg faces danger from Hannah, fear, and difficulties at home, because she wants to rescue Laura and Derry who are trapped in Hannah’s world. She must hang onto the blue shoes in order to get home again.       

ISBN: 0-9739051-1-5     $12.95

 

The Willow Tree Girl

 For ages 7-11, ghosts and time-travel

ISBN 1-55352-073-4      $7.95

 


     More of my writing

CHRISTMAS AT WAR                                        

 

A child was born   somewhere

time unknown  

                                    under silence

after the last bomb dropped

 

They called it Christmas

but gifts stayed wrapped,

            the date of birth

            remained in the chapter left unread

            because of an air raid;

            or was it in the yellow telegram

                        delivered on Christmas Eve?

 

Christmas was delayed  

                                    omitted 

                        forgotten

amidst the barrage balloons

swinging huge and grey

over shops in wet streets

            Decorations hung on voices

            remembering peace

            for a child in war

 

Christmas:  a shadow-play                                     

on blackout curtains

over the door of a stable,

a stocking hung

on an empty manger

 

They used the manger once to pile guns

for soldiers who took them

to shoot down planes 

                                                Crossfire

and searchlights were the only angels

above the midnight fire

of a bombed house 

                                    This child hid from the noise

in the stable behind the house,

buried herself in old hay and tried to remember

that a child was being born   somewhere

            date unknown

                                                            in the silence

after the last bomb      exploded

 

 

 published in New Hope Int’l Forum 1996

 read on CBC Gallery November 1998

 

 

 

 

OTHER YEARS

 

a stack of cards on the table

waiting for wishes

to be sealed within them

while my mind wanders

to other Christmases

when children made chains

cookies     gingerbread men

on the kitchen counter

 

this year there will be

grandchildren at the table

 

 

. . . Offline:

Joanna has an MA from the University of British Columbia. She has published in numerous anthologies and in magazines in Canada, the US, UK, and New Zealand, such as Canadian Women's Studies, Convolvus, Endless Mountains Review, Grain, Green's Magazine, Prairie Fire, Spin, Wascana Review, CBC Gallery, and many more... 

 Clarity House Press has published several of her chapbooks including: 

  • One of These Little Ones (1987) – out of print
  • Cuernavaca Diary (1990) – out of print
  • Seasons (1993) – out of print
  • Watch-night (2005) – out of print