A redemptive tale of ruined lives righted again through love, grace, and good fortune, The Silent Time contains memorable characters, compelling narrative and passages of lyrical beauty. 

Paul Rowe is an actor and writer who lives in St. John's. His first novel The Silent Time, published in 2007 by Creative Book Publishing was inspired by his mother's experience as a deaf child growing up and being educated in early 20th century Newfoundland. The Silent Time was short-listed for the Winterset Award, the Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage and History Award, and long-listed for the Re-Lit Awards. His first feature-length drama To Dare Mighty Things was produced by Rising Tide Theatre in 2003. During the summer of 2010 Paul performed in his own stage adaptation of The Silent Time at Rising Tide Theatre's Trinity Festival. He was also a founding member of Teatro, Newfoundland's only French language theatre company. He has performed with the Resource Centre for the Arts, Tramore Theatre Company, Perchance, Artistic Fraud and, in 2015, with the Stratford Festival of Canada.

Paul Rowe's profile page

• Short-listed, Winterset Award

Rowe’s dramatic background shines through in the rich characters he has created and the believable relationships he weaves for them. Leona Merrigan is a young woman who endures devastating personal hardships, and must cope as the single mother of a deaf child in early-twentieth-century outport Newfoundland. She forms an unlikely friendship with William Cantwell, a politician in St. John’s, who is also haunted by his past. Together they struggle to provide Dulcie, Leona’s deaf daughter, with the education she desperately needs, and in the process find companionship and redemption. The story of growing up deaf in a remote community in the 1920s is both fascinating and moving. As Leona delivers her daughter to the ship that will finally take her to Halifax for school, I found myself in tears.