“A book of women poets in Atlantic Canada — not a moment too soon.” —PK Page “Every once in a while an anthology comes along that feels absolutely necessary. It tells us something we need to know about a certain group of people or it alerts us to significant goings-on outside the centres of influence and power. This is such a book. But beyond what it tells us of women poets who write out of the Atlantic provinces, it demands our attention because the writing is so damn fine. Add to the stunning images and music, the other half of the book — the interviews where the poets speak of their art and their love of where they are — and you have a marvellous collection of voices that weave in and out of one another, speaking a woman’s life, speaking a place, with authenticity, vitality and power. What a gift this book is to us!” —Lorna Crozier “The past decade has seen an unprecedented burgeoning of poetry written by women in Atlantic Canada. Long into the future, we’ll be grateful to Jeanette Lynes for bringing together into one book their voices, obsessions, opinions, aims, and influences. This anthology provides a fascinating tour of contrasting poetics.” —Brian Bartlett

It's Hard Being Queen: The Dusty Springfield Poems is Jeanette Lynes` fourth collection of poetry. Her previous collections are Left Fields (Wolsak and Wynn, 2003, shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award), The Aging Cheerleader’s Alphabet (Mansfield Press, 2003), and A Woman Alone on the Atikokan Highway (Wolsak and Wynn, 1999). Her awards include the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, the Bliss Carman Award, and first prize in the Grain Postcard Story Competition. She has been a visiting artist / writer-in-residence at Queen’s University, Northern Lights College in Dawson Creek, and the Saskatoon Public Library, as well as a faculty member of Francis Xavier University and the Sage Hill Writing Experience. She is currently co-editor of The Antigonish Review.Jeanette Lynes grew up on a farm in Alice Munro country while "Son of a Preacher Man" played on transistor radios everywhere.

Jeanette Lynes' profile page