***THE MIRAMICHI READER'S VERY BEST BOOK AWARDS, POETRY: LONGLIST***

Illuminating, poised, and wholly original, the poems of Sharon King-Campbell’s This Is How It Is range across the planet from New Zealand to Thailand to Newfoundland, gathering along the way voices both historical and mythological in a compelling display of dramatic empathy and poetic imagination. Subverting history and fable while always returning to vividly depicted images of our landscapes within the specter of environmental crisis, King-Campbell spans the far corners of the earth and the previously silent voices of our collective pasts to arrive here at our contemporary moment with poems of formal dexterity as prescient as they are captivating.

Sharon King-Campbell is a theatre and literary artist based in Ktaqmkuk, colonially known as Newfoundland. She was the 2017 recipient of the Rhonda Payne Award, was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2020, and is a four-time winner of the Arts and Letters Awards in fiction, dramatic script, and poetry. Her collection of poetry, This is How It is, was published in 2021. Her plays Original and Give Me Back have reached audiences throughout Newfoundland and Labrador and mainland Canada.

Sharon King-Campbell's profile page

• Long-listed, The Miramichi Reader's 'The Very Best!' Book Award, Poetry Category

"This is a book about journey, touching on different kinds of travel. Across the globe, through perspective, and into the past. The words have traction, trekking in various realms, where King-Campbell guides us through how it is."

The Telegram

"From the first line of Sharon King-Campbell’s This Is How It Is, I felt immediately comforted. Not because these poems are warm and fuzzy – though some of them certainly are! – but because these are poems that are unapologetically Atlantic Canadian. Even though King-Campbell’s collection traverses the world, it is centred with these roots in Atlantic Canada."

The Miramichi Reader