When Jean Baird’s daughter, Bronwyn, died suddenly, Jean’s deep instinct was to turn to books to help her in her time of sudden loss. Although she found that the thoughts of counselors, psychologists, Buddhists, and self-help gurus were perhaps some help, the works that truly reached to the heart of the matter were by literary writers, largely from the UK and the US. Scanning the Canadian landscape, Jean and her husband George Bowering found elegies and tributes, but little from our writers about the person who is left behind to mourn or what it takes to endure grieving. The Heart Does Break—a collection of twenty true stories on grief and mourning - sets out to fill that gap. Contributors include Austin Clarke, Jill Frayne, Marni Jackson, Paul Quarrington, George Elliot Clarke, Catherine Bush, William Whitehead, and more.