Nova Scotia–born Will R. Bird miraculously survived the First World War and returned to Nova Scotia. Determined to tell the stories of the brave soldiers who served, Bird became one of the most prolific authors on the subject, completing both fiction and non-fiction works. For nearly two decades following the war, Bird published war stories in magazines and periodicals, which have now gone out of print and were never digitized, and the stories had long fallen into obscurity—until now. Carefully curated by author and editor Thomas Hodd, A Soldier’s Place is a anthology of fifteen of Bird’s best combat stories, based on the experiences of himself and of others, covering all aspects of the war effort and following brave Canadian, American, and Australian soldiers.

Thomas Hodd is an Associate Professor of Canadian and Atlantic literature at Université de Moncton. His essays and reviews have appeared in the Globe and Mail, the Literary Review of Canada, The Chronicle Herald, the Toronto Star, and Studies in Canadian Literature, among others. He is co-Editor of The Antigonish Review and author of #NOMORENOTES (Anstruther, 2016). His study of Charles G. D. Roberts’s writings on the First World War appeared recently in The Great War: From Memory to History (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2015).

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