Showing results by publisher "Friesen Press" in All Categories

Small towns are places where everyone knows each other’s names—and each other’s business, despite it being none of their own. Yet, folks in small towns never seem to want to talk about mental health. Rural living can be isolating with hours spent on the farm caring for the land, animals, the home, and everyone else first before yourself. Women especially know this struggle all too well. Author Lewellyn Melnyk has experienced this her whole life, suffering from depression in her early teens that left her with what felt like only one option.

With nearly four decades of experience with the good, bad, and ugly of the board universe, Brian Hayward hones in on practical ways to develop the thinking and behaviour necessary for anyone taking this seat. Through real-life examples, and stories featuring Paul McCartney, Kalahari bushmen, Robert Maxwell, camels, Buddhist parables, and the Boeing 737 Max, listeners will see how chairing a board requires leadership competency of its own (distinct from being a director).

What do rocks have to do with body image? With personal stories and actionable steps, body-image activist and educator Teri Hofford helps women reconstruct the relationship they have with their body using geodes as a metaphor. Portraying the harmful belief systems, thought processes, trauma, and past experiences connected with how we view and treat our bodies every day as the gritty, grey, and hardened outer shell of a geode, Teri explains how these things keep us from following our hearts and revealing our true, glittery inner selves.

Mason is anything but average. Being a mixed-race, non-binary, neurodivergent teenager with super-powers trying to navigate high school can be tough. Luckily, they find common ground with a motley crew of two new friends, and the three unlikely heroes embark on a mission of self-discovery and saving the world.

From late January to mid February 2022, the eyes of Canada—and indeed, the world—were on Ottawa, Ontario as the Trucker Freedom Convoy converged from all parts of the nation. They were there to tell Prime Minister Trudeau that enough was enough, and they were not going to give in to his politicized mandate that required all cross-border truckers to receive the COVID 19 vaccine. Their journey caught the imagination of a nation tired of lockdowns, mandates, and government overreach.

In the years following the end of the Shah’s dynasty, a major petrochemical refinery is being constructed in northern Iran by the Islamic Regime. While this is good for Iran, it’s not so good for the West. Enter the Organization for Reorganizing Business (ORB), led by Murray Stockman. ORB sends their senior field operative, Matthew Black, into Iran to “fix” the refinery problem. But this won’t be an easy task.

Using unscrupulous methods, a pair of Danish rogues gain control of an ill-equipped and cash-poor mining company. It owns an abandoned underground mine on the barren south coast of Newfoundland that still hosts quality gold but cannot convince the market to financially support rejuvenation. The pair intend to strip out as much of the high-grade gold remaining and ship it off-shore for processing, as they did on a similar project in Greenland.

A newly Christian friend of mine asked me to recommend a book to help her and her husband get off to a strong start in their new faith. I set out to find the perfect book. Book after book failed to meet my stringent criteria. But I didn't give up; instead, I started writing the book I was looking for, and now you have it in your hands. New Christians have long needed a wise and fun mentor to guide their formative first steps as Jesus followers. The three core beliefs and six core practices of The UpSideDown Life provide the wisdom; I solemnly pledge to bring the fun.

In a quiet city in British Columbia, vampires stalk a hospital, looking for victims to milk, kill, or recruit as partial vampires that instinctively desire humans for their life-giving blood. Although Jude loves the power of being a partial vampire, which includes shapeshifting into whatever he wants, he struggles with guilt over the harm his vampiric nature may cause. His human side clings to his past, but as a vampire he has access to a world of power, immortality, and liberation from human limitations.

In Stone Cold Tea, a beautifully rendered creative non-fiction memoir, Winn Bray Rathbun takes us from early childhood in small-town Welland, Ontario, where she was the youngest in a working-class family of six, to her growing awareness much later in life that her siblings’ perceptions and recollections of family life were surprisingly different from her own. As young children, Winn and her adored older sister, Jayne, enjoy a carefree existence within the shelter of their loving parents and older brothers, Jim and Paul.

We all know not to let strangers into the house—but what about the Tooth Fairy? When JoJo’s second tooth starts to feel loose, she has second thoughts about letting this magical creature back into her room. She doesn’t mind that Santa comes every year, because she gets to meet him at the mall, but the Tooth Fairy is a total unknown. JoJo is determined to learn everything she can before deciding if she’s okay with handing over her teeth.

A Hero’s Journey Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp is a compiled history of the Olympia Sports Camp in Huntsville, Ontario, through the lens of its founder and inspiration, Dave Grace, the hero of the book’s title. The hero’s journey of the title is Dave Grace’s adaptation of the writings and teaching of philosopher Joseph Campbell.

We all create false mountains to climb. Gypsy Muse is a collection of free verse poetry chronicling that journey, and how we move beyond.

Life is full of poetry. Diary of a Life takes its listeners on the poetic journey of author Kimella Louise Gosse, leading us through her childhood and adolescence, her adult years of freedom and travel, motherhood and matrimony, and everything she discovered when her marriage ended and she learned to embrace herself and the world around her. With narrative storytelling and thoughtful poetic offerings, she clearly illustrates the ebb and flow of life, from slow-moving stream to rushing white water, and invites her listeners to join her on the ride

Dancing With Rejection: A Beginner’s Guide to Immortality chronicles the untimely death of Michael’s loving father, our hero’s own near-death experience and his bohemian lifestyle in Canada of the 1970s and ‘80s. A cast of eccentric characters weaves us in and out of lusty tales of romance, gritty medical dramas, and encounters with the paranormal.

Saul the baseball in the big game is an action packed lyrical retelling of an important championship baseball game told by Saul, an animated baseball. Join Saul as he narrates the play by play of the biggest most important game he and his cast of characters team has ever had the chance to play! With every line rhyming, and building to an exciting finish, this is an enchanting, enjoyable story of teamwork, endurance, hope and friendship.

In Burritt’s Rapids and Beyond, “whatever flows, remains.” From Winnipeg, Vancouver, Montreal, and rural Ontario, Louis Contant considers his place in the world. Fireflies, whip-poor-wills, squirrels, dragonflies, waterfalls, and the soulful notes of a sonata drift through these meditations on nature, spirituality, writing, love, family, friendship, and music. Louis’ poems inhabit sorrow and suffering yet are rich with praise, delighting in the comforts and joys of ritual and routine alongside brevity and ephemera.