Bob Chaulk, co-author of SS Atlantic: The White Star Line’s First Disaster at Sea and a double Atlantic Book Award nominee, will be speaking at two events in Halifax on April 15. The first event will be a panel discussion with fellow nominee Mike Herffernan, author of Rig: An Oral History of the Ocean Ranger Disaster. Chaulk will also be giving a presentation at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Details about the two books can be seen below.

Thursday, April 15, noon, Spring Garden Road Memorial Library,Halifax  (902) 490-5700 Panel: Disasters at Sea with nominees Bob Chaulk (SS Atlantic: The White Star Line’s First Disaster at Sea) and Mike Heffernan (Rig: An Oral History of the Ocean Ranger Disaster)

Thursday, April 15, 7 pm, Small Craft Gallery, Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, 1675 Lower Water Street, Halifax (902) 424-7490
Reading: Bob Chaulk, double nominee, co-author of SS Atlantic: The White Star Line’s First Disaster at Sea

SS Atlantic and Rig are both nominated for the Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing. SS Atlantic, co-authored by the late Greg Cochkanoff, is also nominated for the Dartmouth Book Award (Non-fiction).

SS Atlantic: The White Star Line’s First Disaster at Sea
Greg Cochkanoff and Bob Chaulk
Goose Lane Editions

The only comprehensive account of the deadliest shipwreck of the nineteenth century. Richly illustrated with archival pictures, maps, engravings, and photographs.

A graduate of Acadia University, Greg Cochkanoff counted his first dive course amongst his most valuable college experiences. A devoted family man and successful business owner, he spent his weekends searching for and investigating the many shipwrecks in Nova Scotia waters. One wreck especially captured his attention and imagination-the wreck of the S.S.Atlantic. Hundreds of dives to its resting place and more than 25 years of painstaking research, scouring three countries and two continents for information to write the first draft of the book, gave Greg a unique view of this little-known Maritime tragedy. With the writing of this definitive book, he hoped that others would gain a window into a period of time when the only way to a new life involved a harrowing trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Greg died unexpectedly in 2008, age 49. He had just received word that his book was to be published.

Born in Notre Dame Bay, NL, Bob Chaulk traces his Newfoundland ancestry back more than three centuries. A graduate of Memorial and Carleton universities, he is the author of Time in a Bottle: Historic Halifax Harbour from the Bottom Up, and has also published more than fifty articles about his experiences scuba diving in the North Atlantic. Bob’s first novel, The Chain Locker, is being released this spring from Creative Book Publishers.

Rig: An Oral History of the Ocean Ranger Disaster
Mike Heffernan
Creative Publishers: An Imprint of Creative Book Publishing

Rig: An Oral History of the Ocean Ranger Disaster, a collection of first-person accounts and previously unpublished photographs, describes events as they unfolded from those most greatly affected-victims’ families, former rig workers, emergency responders and government officials. It is an intimate journey through grief and sadness and the search for meaning in the most devastating of tragedies.

Mike Heffernan was born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland. In addition to Rig–which is being adapted for the stage by Rising Tide Theatre–he is also editor of Hard Ol’ Spot: An Anthology of Atlantic Canadian Fiction. His most recent work has appeared inRiddle Fence and was performed on CBC Radio. He is currently working on The Other Side of Midnight: Taxi Cab Stories.

For more information please visithttp://www.atlanticbookawards.ca/ or contact:
Nicholas Graham
Publicist, Atlantic Book Awards & Festival
http://www.atlanticbookawards.ca
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