Talking About Defiant Island

Thanks to Philip Carroll for another interview, this one on Defiant Island. The novel has just been published in a new edition, and the interview went live this week. Philip and I discuss Defiant Island’s characters, its (important) setting, and what the story is about, namely, a small, remote community under threat of disappearing.

The first edition of Defiant Island was published in 2007, and, looking back, was remarkably prescient with the threatened loss of rural communities in the news again, and likely to remain there.

For example, here’s the headline from the lead article on the Opinion page of the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal recently:

Shift spending to urban growth

The writer goes on to quote, approvingly, a researcher’s opinion that Atlantic Canadians can no longer live in a “fantasy land” where they can expect to receive all sorts of services at their doorstep, regardless of where they live.

So where do you stand on the Great Urban-Rural Rift?

Do you think rural communities should be allowed to disappear as government funding is directed increasingly to urban centres as the fairest and most effective way, through economy of scale, of utilising scarce financial resources?

Do you believe people from rural communities should move to urban centres?

Do you believe in forced resettlement?

Defiant Island presents the for and against arguments about the viability and sustainability of rural life through the microcosm of a remote island community under threat of disappearing through the ‘rationalisation of services’ proposed by a government forced by dire financial circumstances to make some tough decisions.

But the novel is not just a political tract. As Terry Seguin of CBC Radio and TV wrote in a kind review: Defiant Island is “… An absorbing story of a proud people’s fight to survive … a story of struggle and enduring friendship … a story about love.”

Philip and I discuss these themes in the Defiant Island interview, which you can find as follows:

On Stitcher at: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/phili...

On Philip’s podcast website at: http://yabookspodcast.libsyn.com/podcast

(This link should take you directly to the interview on Philip’s website: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/8/f/9/8f90ab80b01a5276/YABP_SE_Defiant_Island.mp3?c_id=11289079&expiration=1458913343&hwt=cf4a75ffb6063dd5402658ea3b6c5b21)

Or on iTunes where it’s listed as Bonus Episode #2 March 22 2016.

The new edition of Defiant Island is published by Speaking Volumes Press, of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

defiantisland - draftA