Bøger udgivet af Caitlin Press

A spinster in love with a tobacco-smoking ghost. A lonely one-eyed monster who wanders the desert. A Medieval saint who delights in her " miraculous ruine." In Little Fortified Stories, award-winning writer Barbara Black conjures a microcosm of characters that defy convention. In these very short stories, curious worlds are encapsulated like a series of snow globes, swirling with deep emotion and teeming with strangeness. Inspired by art, music, alcoholic spirits, and what Black calls " authentic fabrications" from her own ancestry, these eclectic tales are told with an eye to the absurd. Buzzing with hypnotic intensity, Little Fortified Stories presents a world in which everything is theatre and the regular rules don't apply.

Nestled in a small logging town near Lake Cowichan is an old elementary school. The child of immigrants from post-war Italy attends this school among the population of mostly white, anglo-saxon families. She does not speak English. Her family is one of four who emigrated from southern Italy, to this small forested community. There are other families, from India, who share a kinship of ' other' with the Italian families. What happens when your voice, your food, your home is different? How do you know how to be queer when there is no language or place for it? How do you remember a time not spoken of, but passed on through the smell of walnut blossoms in the spring, grapes in the fall? In Portrait of an Immigrant, Tina Biello chronicles this upbringing of otherness, of being shaped by two very different communities, of blending identities into one, and what is left behind in the process.

We Follow the River tells the story of one family's escape from military violence in Myanmar, their exiled existence in Thailand, and their immigration to Canada with only a pile of beat up suitcases on a luggage cart. It is about growing up as a foreigner in a foreign land, sifting through family history and grief, and alighting across cultures and continents to find a home. Onjana Yawnghwe's third poetry book reveals an expertise in language-- at times joyful, disobedient, wild, and other times condensed and restrained. A work of over twenty years, these poems are written and rewritten through the retroactive prism of experience, polished and honed, eroded and erased. Sweeping in scope, intimate and honest, these poems tell of the quiet moments, the unruly moments of rage and sorrow, the rough distillation of self, both hated and loved. These poems reside behind the secret, dark door of the self.

In Water Confidential, Susan Blacklin revisits the important work of her late ex-husband, Dr. Hans Peterson. Beginning in 1996, Peterson, growing frustrated with his work in government funded research in Saskatchewan, brought attention to the desperate need for equal access to safe drinking water after a visit the Yellow Quill First Nation. In response to the issue, he developed biological technology for effective water treatment, still in use today. Peterson and Blacklin joined forces with scientists from around the world to establish the registered national charity, the Safe Drinking Water Foundation. Advocacy became a high priority when they discovered a variety of challenges to their mission, including questionable government practices that were blocking the reality of safe drinking water in First Nations communities. In this passionate and timely memoir, Blacklin shares her experiences with fundraising, activism and lobbying work and reveals the complexities of negotiating between cultures, communities and the provincial and federal government.

In Kotli Petrichor, Tariq Malik revisits Kotli, the 1,000-year-old city of his formative years in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. Marked by the traumas of dislocation and migration, the city and its inhabitants share secrets and longings, chronicled and imagined by Malik as he gives voice to a personal history that precedes his experiences as an immigrant in Canada, as portrayed in Exit Wounds. As the inhabitants of Kotli are forced to branch out in search of home, their stories expand to encompass the diaspora of Malik's fellow mohijar. Named for the earthy, familiar scent present after rainfall, Kotli Petrichor is a compelling, luminous celebration of people and place.

Hazard, Home is a tribute to both wonder and grief for Earth's inhabitants and systems. With admiration for the land holders (trees) and inhabitants of the rainforest, wetlands and oceans of her home, former Tofino Poet Laureate Christine Lowther delves into the pressing issues of urbanization, climate change, and loss of biodiversity while expressing her deep concern for those feathered, furred, webbed, and rooted. Hazard, Home is set apart from traditional nature poetry by its decolonial lens which pays tribute to stolen lands as well as displaced people and cultures. Lowther's words are both startling and reflective as she bears witness to the devastating impact of our presence on the natural world. Through her evocative writing, Lowther inspires us to celebrate the beauty of nature while recognizing the urgent need for change.

Critically acclaimed in the original French, The Fifth offers a refreshing take on sexuality and desire. Alice, Gayle, Camille and Simon live together in a polyamorous relationship, affectionately referred to as the Family. Camille, a trans woman, and Gayle are lovers; Simon is in a relationship with Alice; and Alice is in a relationship with everyone. But when Alice invites her seemingly straight ex-boyfriend Eloy to move into their Sherbrooke, Quebec apartment--albeit temporarily--the Family's dynamic begins to change in unexpected ways. Narrated by each Family member along with script-like interludes, the daily lives of Alice, Gayle, Camille, Simon, and Eloy show a loving and satisfying non-traditional relationship. Infused with Quebecois culture, The Fifth is a story rarely represented in Canadian literature. Not about infidelity or possessiveness, rather, it is about the individuals as they navigate love and desire, and punch stereotypes and stigma in the face. Now available for the first time in English from award-winning translator and author Monica Meneghetti, The Fifth is honest, delightfully unconventional, breaks down barriers and challenges norms in our society.

On the day that Lytton, BC burned to the ground, Meghan Fandrich ran from the flames. She saw the village turn into a black pillar of smoke, and went home after a month-long evacuation to its ashes. Her house, on the edge of the fire, was saved; her community and her small business were not. Life as she knew it was gone, and somehow, in spite of the trauma and the ongoing onslaught of natural disasters, she had to keep going. Living. Surviving. Burning Sage shares Meghan's deeply personal story of the fire, the ensuing trauma, and the path out of it. But it is also a human story, a universal story, of loneliness, fragility and beauty. The poems follow the arc of shock, fear, and anger, and the impossibility of single parenting in a burned-up town. They tell of a connection, a love, and the way that feeling understood can help us understand ourselves. The poems in Burning Sage share a vivid portrait of grief and heartbreak and, ultimately, of healing.

Born out of the early days of the pandemic, Barbara Pelman's A Brief and Endless Sea explores the concept of ' gaps' those moments of nothingness that are paradoxically full of potential. Many of the poems are rooted in Jewish tradition: the Angel Purah who cuts the ties between soul and body; the prophet Isaiah's words of comfort; the concept of " Tsimtsum," a withdrawal in order to create space for something new. The poems reach toward a potential built from seeming emptiness; Pelman mines the depths, taking us to difficult places-- the dissolution of a marriage, caring for a parent with dementia. But she doesn't leave us there, waiting. Using the power of words to map a route out, A Brief and Endless Sea pulls us toward life in all of its vibrant details-- the simple beauty of a small garden, the pleasures of teaching, long walks with a grandson, and encounters with spirituality. For Pelman, there is comfort in the " smallest life you can love." Like the glosa form she turns to often, something small transforms into something larger, expansive. In A Brief and Endless Sea, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and waiting in itself presents fertile ground for hope and possibility.

Absence of Wings depicts the extraordinary and tragically foreshortened life of A.-- Paré 's niece, Brazilian, adopted, racialized, and living with multiple mental health diagnoses. In her deft and clear poetics, accompanied by documentary pieces in the tradition of C.D. Wright's One with Others, Paré is both witness to and emotionally engaged in the life and death of A. The result is deep and heart-felt, both factional and fictional, poetry and prose, holding its subject, A., heart-close and 3,000 miles away. Absence of Wings unfolds on many levels; it embraces the private and public spheres; it is as intimate as family, as worldly as the public and personal politics that surround each life. It both observes and embraces, always with the important question of the world's unprotected children in mind.

In 1849, at just 13 years old, Philip Hankin entered the Royal Navy and engaged in campaigns to suppress the trade of enslaved people on the coasts of Africa. His naval career brought him to Vancouver Island in 1858, where he helped survey the coastline. In his journeys on Indigenous homelands, Hankin learned several Indigenous languages, a skill that would prove pivotal in his career. After leaving the navy at age twenty-eight, he walked from Yale to Barkerville to try his hand at prospecting. In this, despite family connections to Billy Barker, he failed miserably. Broke, he returned to Victoria, where within months he was appointed Superintendent of Police for the Colony of Vancouver Island, but the merger of the colonies in 1866 left him again jobless. He served as colonial secretary in British Honduras and later in British Columbia. Hankin was at the centre of BC politics in the years before BC's accession to Canada in 1871. In The Eventful Life of Philip Hankin, Geoff Mynett tells the story of the adventurous and often tumultuous life of this " rolling stone" and reveals his remarkable resilience.

In 1979, Kristin Miller and her partner hitched a ride on a fishboat to a remote community across the harbour from Prince Rupert, BC. Together, they imagined settling down in this rustic paradise. But that dream fell apart and Kristin moved in alone. Bereft, angry, and in fragile health after a disastrous failed pregnancy and a faltering marriage, she sought refuge in the cabin to harbour her grief. The support of the open-hearted hippies, hermits, fishermen, and adventurous women living across the harbour helped Kristin heal physically and emotionally. Friends gave advice about storms, fog, and outboard motors, and though often scared, Kristin became stronger and braver and grew to love the sea. The women taught her to can salmon and beachcomb for firewood. She taught them to quilt. Knots and Stitches: Community Quilts Across the Harbour is a touching memoir about the power of community, and a celebration of the stalwart women who honed their nautical skills, fell in and out of love, celebrated life's milestones by making quilts together, and thrived in a harsh and sometimes dangerous environment.

Keiko Honda is living a successful, busy life as a scientist of cancer epidemiology at Columbia University in New York City when one morning she abruptly loses all strength in her legs. Within hours, she can barely breathe. She soon discovers she is permanently paralyzed from the chest down due to a rare autoimmune disease with a frequency of approximately one case per million per year. Seeking a wheelchair-accessible home closer to nature in which to raise her daughter, Keiko moves to Vancouver, Canada. She starts hosting informal artist salons, forms a mutually supportive group of artists and art-loving neighbours and then, surprisingly, becomes an artist herself. While her illness forced her departure from a career she spent twelve years building, it would ultimately provide the opportunity to live a life dedicated to community, friendship and art, as well as the continually evolving process of self-discovery as a mother, Japanese immigrant, survivor and artist. Accidental Blooms is a story of profound transformation that demonstrates how tragedy can teach one to see anew.

Gumboot Girls and Dancing in Gumboots chronicled the fascinating and inspiring stories of the 1970's migration of women seeking a new way of life on BC's West Coast, from Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii to the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. But what about the men who came in search of their own adventure, who became smitten with boats and the smell of salty air? Now, Gumboot Guys joins the two previous collections in chronicling this exciting decade, when all seemed possible. Stories of buying, fixing, building and running boats; learning to navigate the ocean's many moods; describing the abundance, and subsequent decline, of salmon stocks; and many, many tales of the unpredictable nature of life on the sea paint a vivid picture of the thrilling, adventurous and occasionally dangerous world awaiting these men. The constant current running through each of these stories is community-- the guidance of experienced mentors, the encouragement from fellow adventure-seekers and the generous support of partners and families. These stories serve as a time capsule commemorating an era of hope, fortitude and freedom.

Following a devastating leg injury that would leave her with an acutely crooked knee, Bronwyn Preece embarks on an ambitious and immersive journey into a remote area of Northern BC. Written on the trail, knee deep in high water is a chronicle of the most physically challenging experience following her accident--a two-week-long horse expedition--and an impassioned ode to the breathtaking beauty of the backcountry. As she journeys through melting mountains and rising rivers, Preece encounters new moments of thwarted plans and questioned ethics that parallel her personal path of healing, both physical and emotional. These poems are an account of one woman's movement into a deeper understanding of self. She grapples with her role as a settler in the unceded lands that provide her with so much comfort and attachment, as well as her own fragility and strength in relation to the terrains she explores. Through struggles and celebrations, lessons and longings, knee deep in high water is a love letter to the trail, and to returning home.

Journey back in time to the bygone era of "printer's devils" and uncover how their influence shaped the establishment of BC's Smelter City. The grisly murder of a nurse, a crippling 1917 strike, death on the wartime battlefield, the 1918-19 flu pandemic--these are just some of the historic events covered in the early days of the Trail News. In Printer's Devils, historian Ron Verzuh offers both a study of pioneer journalism and a social history of the smelter city of Trail as it grew into a small but prosperous community. He traces the stories of residents and their evolving attitudes, pastimes, and opinions as they respond in times of economic crisis, war, labour strife, and life-threatening disease against the backdrop of one of Canada's pioneer industrial centres. Beneath these stories is a revealing exploration into the lives of six Trail News editors--Trail's printer's devils--in which we see firsthand how their editorial choices were honed by their education, business priorities, and experience as printers in the early days of newspaper publishing in the region. Delving back through layers of history, Printer's Devils: The Feisty Pioneer Newspaper That Shaped the History of British Columbia's Smelter City is a tribute to the lasting impact of journalism in Canadian society, as chronicled in one single-industry town.

THIS UNLIKELY SOIL, the sophomore collection from Lambda Literary Award finalist Andrea Routley, is a quintet of linked novellas exploring the failures of kindness and connection among a rural west-coast community of queer women. In Midden, Naomi, recently split from Rita and apathetically venturing into online dating, sifts through the remains of past relationships after Rita accuses her of emotional abuse. In Appropriate Behaviour, Freddie, suffering from a brain injury, seeks resolution with a neighbour after his dog bites her, but a lifetime of mixed messages yields disastrous results. In Guided Walk, Miriams latest clumsy infatuation pushes her to change her life, to finally come out on a guided walk with her cousin. When her cousin beats her to it, Miriam descends into pettiness before finding her way out of the woods. THIS UNLIKELY SOIL, a finalist for the 2020 Malahat Review Novella Prize, is the story of Elana, who, following the sudden death of her mother, attempts to manufacture a meaningful relationship with a former partners teenaged son. The quintet concludes with Damage, the sequel to Midden. Told from Ritas perspective, this story explores classist exploitations within many relationships and asks what our responsibilities are in saying no.

In RIVER OF MISTS, best-selling author and award-winning historian Geoff Mynett returns to the Skeena River community of Hazelton to shed new light on the wide spectrum of characters who left their mark on the area. Delving as far back in time as the early 1820s, Mynett covers over a century of change in the small community which, due to its location at the forks of the Skeena and Bulkley rivers and proximity to mountain ranges, seems destined to be a hub of activity -- always industrious, often prosperous, and occasionally scandalous -- while maintaining the charming nature of a small town. The characters in RIVER OF MISTS may not be those traditionally associated with the written history of the region now known as Hazelton, BC. Here are the stories of those whose lives left some mark on the community -- visitors like Hudsons Bay Company trader Simon McGillivray, Western Union Telegraph medical officer George Chismore, and famed painter Emily Carr; and the lesser-known pioneers, prospectors, and long-time residents like HBC agent turned local business owner Thomas Hankin, and Bishop William Ridley and Jane Ridley, founders of the Hazelton Queek, named after the whistling mountain marmot. Combining folksy, small-town charm and meticulous research, Mynetts River of Mists: People of the Upper Skeena, 1821-1930 is a whimsical and informative chronicle of a century in the heart of Northern BC.

In the style of Gumboot Girls and Dancing in Gumboots, Dancing on Mountains is an inspiring collection of firsthand stories from women of the Kootenays and Sinixt and Ktunaxa Nations. Dancing on Mountains is a collection of inspiring and eclectic stories written by women from across geography and time, each of whom has been drawn to take root in the mystic, beautiful Kootenays. In their own words, these women--teachers, artists, musicians, writers, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists--share stories that embody the spirit of the Kootenays. From fleeing the US draft alongside the men of the 60s and pushing against traditional gender roles and sexism, to reclaiming Indigenous identities, calling out environmental threats, and fighting for our climate today, these stories span the spectrum of human experience. Thoughtful, heartwarming, and delightfully entertaining, Dancing on Mountains is a celebration of the brilliant, radical essence of the women of the Kootenays.

In Kechika Chronicler, award-winning historian Jay Sherwood delves into the diaries of reclusive packer William Freer to uncover daily life in one of the most remote areas of BC. Willard Freer lived in remote areas of northern BC for most of his life. Born in Kamloops in 1910 and raised in the Peace River country, Freer came to the Kechika River valley in 1942, where he worked for a number of years with famed packer and guide Skook Davidson. He then built a cabin about 35 kilometres to the north and spent the rest of his life in the valley, and at Fireside, an Alaska Highway lodge near the junction of the Kechika and Liard rivers. By all accounts, Freer was a quiet, introverted person, who faithfully kept a daily diary from 1942 to 1975. Most of the entries are brief, but cumulatively they provide a detailed record of life in northern BC and southern Yukon Territory. Due to his proximity to the famed Alaska Highway and the historic Davie Trail, Willard encountered many of the Indigenous people who lived, worked, and travelled through the Kechika valley, as well as casual visitors, bush pilots, government survey parties including the Geological Survey of Canada, major mining companies, and branches of the US Army in northern BC during World War II. Willard Freer's diaries are the most extensive written record of daily life in a remote region of BC.