In Old Mans Winter Night: Ghostly Tales is the newest collection of ghost stories by Tom Dawe, one of Newfoundland and Labradors most distinguished writers. The stories, all based on ones Dawe himself has collected across the province over the years, include tales of visitations both malevolent and benign. There are stories of ghostly galleons, of unsettling graves, of strange omens and fetches; an eerie tale of a notoriously haunted house haunted, or built on a fairy path; and another of a ghostly sled dog that returns to save its master lost in a blizzard. Targeted to middle readers, but appropriate for older readers as well, the book includes original, deeply atmospheric illustrations by acclaimed artist Veselina Tomova. The images, as powerful as the stories themselves, fuse word and image, hauntingly. These are chilling tales perfect for reading or telling by the fireside on a cold winters night.
Tom Dawe has been a high school teacher, English professor, visual artist, editor, writer, and poet. He has published numerous volumes, including poetry, folklore, and childrens literature. His latest works include Where Genesis Begins, winner of The Canadian Authors Association Poetry Award; Moocher in the Lun, winner of the Bruneau Award for Childrens Literature; and The Wonderful Dogfish Racket. His work has appeared in many magazines, journals, and anthologies. In the seventies, during the Newfoundland Renaissance, he was one of the founders of Breakwater Books, a founding editor of TickleAce, and prose editor of The Livyere, a folklore journal. In 2002 Martina Seiferts comprehensive study, Rewriting Newfoundland Mythology: The Works of Tom Dawe , was published in Germany and Cambridge, Mass., USA. Recipient of many awards and honours, in 2007 he was awarded a WANL Lifetime Membership Award and was elected to the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council Hall of Honour. In 2010 he was named St. Johns Poet Laureate. In 2012 he was named a member of the Order of Canada and also of the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Veselina Tomova graduated from Leipzig's School of Graphic Art and Book Design before moving to Newfoundland. She has illustrated books in Germany, Bulgaria and Canada, including the children's books Star's Island, Maggie & Hero, A Dozen Silk Diapers, and Running the Goat publications An Old Man's Winter Night: Ghostly tales, Spirited Away: Fairy stories of old Newfoundland and PB's Comet. Her book The Wall & the Wind was published in the fall of 2020. In 2021, she is illustrating Catherine Dempsey's Daphne's Bees. She divides her time between St. John's, Newfoundland and Rusalya, Bulgaria.