Goose Lane Editions and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia have released the first comprehensive book on the art of Joe Norris, one of Canada's greatest folk artists. The book was published in conjunction with a major show of Norris's work which opened November 25, 2000 at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and toured the country through 2003. Joe Norris was one of Nova Scotia's greatest folk artists. He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and lived in Lower Prospect, Halifax County. For much of his life, he worked as a fisherman and construction worker. At the age of 49, a severe heart attack forced him into retirement and, at the encouragement of a visiting nurse who provided him with materials and prodded him to do a little painting each day, he began to make pictures for himself and for friends. Joe Norris is probably best known for his brilliantly coloured scenes of the rocky coves of Nova Scotia, his paintings of seagulls (sitting on islands or sprinkled about the cove), his hot pink horizons, animals and ships, his paintings of winter night scenes, invariably (and appropriately) titled "Starry Night." His work appears on traditional canvas or panel, but also on picture frames, tables, rocking chairs, stools, chests of drawers, and even fireplace mantels. The cove scenes and seagull paintings of Joe Norris have become icons of Nova Scotia over the past quarter century and many people consider the artist to be a national treasure. During his lifetime, his work was represented by Houston North Galleries and the Mira Godard Gallery and is now included in many private and public collections, including the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the McMichael Collection. Joe Norris embodied the free and lively spirit of folk artists who work outside the mainstream, free of any preconceived notions of what art ought to be. His simple paintings arouse feelings of joy in all but the most jaded viewers and provide a window open to his tranquil, but captivating, kingdom by the sea. This tribute to Joe Norris chronicles his life and work in the little fishing village of Lower Prospect, Nova Scotia, twenty-five kilometres and a lifetime away from Halifax. The book features almost 100 colour reproductions of his paintings, a dozen or more documentary photographs, text by Bernard Riordon that places Joe Norris and his work within the context of North American folk art, and shorter essays by Chris Huntington, John Houston, and Philip Brooks.

This book is for both art-based researchers and research-informed artists, exploring the theatrical genre known as Collective Creation, or Playbuilding. Performers generate data around chosen topics— from addiction and sexuality to qualitative research—by compiling scenes from their disparate voices. Audience members become involved in the investigation, and the performed scenes do not end the conversation but challenge and extend it. Through discussion and audience participation, the process examines how knowledge is defined and how data is mediated.

Duoethnography is a collaborative research methodology in which two or more researchers engage in a dialogue on their disparate histories in a given phenomenon. Their goal is to interrogate and re-conceptualize existing beliefs through a conversation that is written in a play-script format. The methodology of duoethnography serves as the focus of this book. Duoethnography facilitates stratified, nested, auto-ethnographic accounts of a given research context or question, designed to emphasize the complex, reflexive, and aesthetic aspects of both the work in process and the product. As a curriculum and a research method, duoethnography explores two seminal issues: representation in qualitative research (how to represent findings when findings are created within a dynamic phenomenonological text), and praxis (how research contributes to a sense of personal change). Duoethnography allows researchers to explore their hybrid identities and to see how their lives have been situated socially and culturally. Recent duoethnographic studies have examined a range of topics, including forms of institutionalized racism, beauty, post-colonialism, multicultural identity construction, and professional boundaries between patient and practitioner in mental health professions.

Norris shares for the first time his own 18-point program of psychological self-improvement. This is the personal philosophy which has enabled him to positively and successfully transform his life--and fueled his rise to stardom in the martial arts, in motion pictures--and as an author!

Two dozen scholars present the first wave of duoethnographic writings on topics as diverse as gender, identity and curriculum, with the editors highlighting key tenets of this collaborative research methodology.

Enter Joe Coamoe. He's a Bounty Hunter and former Army Ranger. He returns home to escape the terrors of a never-ending Afghanistan war that cost him his leg, his faith in humanity, and quite possibly, his sanity. When what begins as a routine bounty rapidly transforms into a fresh horror, Cocamoe finds himself in a place where the familiar becomes foreign and the unexplainable his new armor. Follow Cocamoe on a journey into the unfathomable, as he seeks to navigate the labyrinths of a fresh hell.

This is a book for new teachers about putting drama education theory into practice and preparing for the contextual variables that lie ahead. It is the next-best thing to actual classroom experience, enabling readers to think through "What do I do if . . .'" scenarios and experience vicariously a broad range of teaching situations. While there are many examples of teacher casebooks, Learning to Teach Drama is the first text written specifically for teachers of theatre/drama. Furthermore, these cases are written by novices, not experts, providing readers with authentic voices from the field. Eighteen case narratives are featured in all, representing the issues every beginning teacher faces: planning lessons, knowing students as individuals and as members of a group, establishing classroom climate, understanding the place of drama within the school community, and expecting the unexpected. These teachers also assist one another, comment on each other's cases, and effectively create a learning community. In addition, special "Extensions" sections prepared by the editors encourage readers to go beyond each narrative and relate the situations to their own teaching.

Through extensive research and interviews with five notorious serial killers, author Joel Norris demonstrates that serial killers have specific biological and genetic makeups that can be identified as early as five years of age. A compelling read for both the curious layman and the concerned professional.

Narrative inquiry examines human lives through the lens of a narrative, honoring lived experience as a source of important knowledge and understanding. In this concise volume, D. Jean Clandinin, one of the pioneers in using narrative as research, updates her classic formulation on narrative inquiry (with F. Michael Connelly), clarifying, extending and refining the method based on an additional decade of work. A valuable feature is the inclusion of several exemplary cases with the author’s critique and analysis of the work. The rise of interest in narrative inquiry in recent years makes this is an essential guide for researchers and an excellent text for graduate courses in qualitative inquiry.