River People is Wayne Curtis's collection of short stories set in the Miramichi River Valley of New Brunswick. As always, he brings his keen observation and insights to his writing, describing the landscape and the inhabitants with candour but also a heartfelt empathy, for this is territory of both land and soul with which he is so familiar.

Curtis chronicles the disappointment of a refined British war bride when she marries a New Brunswick woodsman, the terrible hold a youthful love affair has on a young man throughout his life, the need to belong for children of a youth home, the consequences of first-time passion for a girl and the boy who loves her, and the weight of responsibility burdening a lad who has a brief glimpse of what life in town could be like for him.

Shimmering in each story is Curtis's love for the great river and the woods, for the bounties they provide and the hardships for those people tied to the backbreaking work required to make a living from them.

Wayne Curtis was born in Keenan, New Brunswick, in 1943. He was educated at the local schoolhouse and St. Thomas University where he majored in English. He has won the Richards Award for short fiction, The Lieutenant Governor's Award, and the CBC Drama Awards. Wayne's stories have appeared in literary journals: The Cormorant, The Fiddlehead, Pottersfield Portfolio, The Nashwaak Review, The Antigonish Review, The Dalhousie Review, New Brunswick Reader, New Maritimes and the anthologies Atlantica, Country Roads, The STU Reader, Winter House, The Christmas Secret and Winter. His short stories have been dramatized on CBC radio and CBC television.

In the spring of 2005, Wayne Curtis received an Honorary Doctorate Degree (letters) from St. Thomas University. In 2014 he was awarded the Order of New Brunswick. In 2018 he received the Senate Sesquicentennial Medal from the Canadian Senate and in 2023 he received The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Award. Wayne has lived in southern Ontario, Yukon Territories and Cuba. He currently divides his time between his cabin on the Miramichi River and his apartment in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Our Christmas Guest is his twenty-second published book.

Wayne Curtis' profile page