Barry Potyondi

Canadian historian and novelist passionate about the craft of narrative. Author of The Bittersweet Year, non-fiction books, and the nationally recognized short story The Dance. Published in Canadian Geographic, Northwest Palate, and elsewhere.

Novelist on Training Wheels

In Boy: Tales of Childhood, Roald Dahl called writing a fool’s pursuit. By that measure, I am doubly foolish: I have written almost continuously, from my first summer as a rural newspaper reporter to my retirement as a speechwriter some 40 years later.

For nearly two decades, I worked as a public historian, documenting our nation’s past. Later, I reinvented myself as a freelancer, writing for academic and corporate leaders, while also moonlighting as a magazine reporter, editor, book reviewer, food and wine critic, satirical blogger, and occasional humorist. My mother never once asked when I would get a “real job.”

I always wanted to write a novel, though life and sloth delayed me. Finally, as I entered this brief pause between seniority and senility, I realized I no longer had any excuse.

The result is The Bittersweet Year, published in London in the summer of 2025.

In 1918 Winnipeg, Clare MacMillan anxiously awaits news from her husband Robert, fighting in France. Married only a month before his deployment, she seeks distraction in art and volunteer work—until wounded soldiers and the Spanish Flu bring war’s brutal realities to her doorstep.

In this world broken by war and plague, Clare discovers that love and loss share the same battlefield.

Perfect for readers of The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, and The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker.