To mark its 30th anniversary, the Townshippers’ Association – a not-for-profit association which represents different sectors of the English-speaking community in the Eastern Townships – has recently issued Taproot IV, its fourth collection of poetry, prose, and images. Since the first edition, issued in 1999 to celebrate the Townshippers’ Association’s 20th anniversary, these collections have exclusively contained works by local storytellers, poets, and visual artists.

Taproot IV contains pieces of varying calibre and represents the active English-speaking artistic community of the Eastern Townships – a community full of both established and emerging artists. Many, it seems, have discovered the joy of writing thanks to the Townshippers’ Association’s call for submissions. From stories that express the joy of sleighing in the numerous hills of the region to poems about Vancouver churches and wintery pictures of Lake Massawipi, this anthology has something for everybody.

Edited by Brenda Hartwell, Carolyn Rowell, and Ann Scowcroft, Taproot IV offers a glimpse of the vibrancy of the Eastern Townships’ creative class. mRb