Nightswimming opens on July 20th, 2009, the fortieth anniversary of the momentous Apollo 11 mission, with Sandy Knowles recording an audio memoir of those moonlanding times. Travelling to the moon, she confides to her digital recorder, was like nightswimming through the black waters of the universe. Sandy is recording memories as she prefers them - at first, keeping her contact with the past, light. She speaks of summer in Muskoka where paradise was nothing more than a hillbilly get-together of forgotten cottages; where spinster twins in identical dresses held tender vigils for lost love; where a sad hippy preached peace between Dylan and swigs of vodka; and where two friends struggled with the awkward complexities of loving the same boy. These tidbits of the story, like penny candy, are sweet, and so Sandy tells them easily enough. And yet there is something more - a dark memory that must resurface so that the truth can be brought to light.

Janet Turpin Myers' profile page

Janet Turpin Myers has a Bachelor of Social Work and a BA in Political Science from McMaster University. She won a writing competition sponsored by the International School of Social Work and her article was published in their journal, Sage. Her poetry has appeared in Hammered Out and Tower Poetry. Nightswimming is her first novel. She currently lives in Burlington, Ontario.