Latest news with #CaitlinPress
Hamilton Spectator
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Former Haida Gwaii journalist launches debut novel
Heather Ramsay, a former reporter and freelance journalist who worked in Haida Gwaii is hitting the road this spring and summer with her debut novel, 'A Room in the Forest.' This coming-of-age novel explores identity, belonging, and the tensions of personal discovery. Published by Caitlin Press and released in March, Ramsay's debut follows 19-year-old Lily as she leaves a stifling life working in her father's small-town Alberta furniture store for a job in the ancient forests of Haida Gwaii. Her journey toward a new beginning becomes complicated when she encounters a group of tree planters who challenge her assumptions about the land she's entering and the stories she carries with her. In 'A Room in the Forest,' Ramsay takes readers on a profound journey of personal growth and transformative power of the wilderness set against the stunning backdrop of Haida Gwaii. Tour Dates and Appearances Ramsay will be reading from her book at several venues across British Columbia and Alberta: She will also be part of a northern B.C. tour alongside other authors such as Al Rempel, Adrienne Fitzpatrick, Daniela Elza, and Leanne Boschman: Her books will be available at all venues and can be ordered from bookstores across Canada. Ramsay currently lives and writes in the unceded Ts'elxwéyeqw territory (Chilliwack, BC). Her writing is deeply shaped by the places she's lived, including 10 years in Haida Gwaii, seven years in Wet'suwet'en territory, and her childhood in Treaty 7 (Tsuutʼina and Blackfoot Territory, Calgary, AB). \With an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, her work has appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Numero Cinq, Canadian Geographic, and more. She has also co-written two books for the Haida Gwaii Museum: Gina' Waadluxan Tluu: The Everything Canoe and The Monumental Poles of Skidegate.
CBC
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Encrypted by Arleen Paré
In September 2020, Arleen Paré's almost twenty-year old grandson moved into the basement of her home to attend courses nearby. After suffering a bout of severe anxiety and depression, he was forced to drop out of his second-year computer science program after one month. In an effort to quell her own feelings of helplessness and growing anxiety about the situation, Paré turned to poetry. In the words of Jane Munro, Paré assessed the age of anxiety with "anguished clarity"—social media, climate crisis, pandemic, addiction, inflation, depression. Both a tender tribute to a beloved grandson and an elegy for coming of age in our modern, online society, Encrypted is an honest and illuminating narrative of a life arrested and a home haunted by grief. Eventually, her grandson was able to return, little by little, to his studies. Paré's grandson still lives with her today. (From Caitlin Press) Encrypted is available in May 2025. Arleen Paré is a poet based in Victoria, B.C., and the author of nine poetry collections. She has received various awards, including the American Golden Crown Award for Poetry, the Victoria Butler Book Prize, a CBC Bookie Award and a Governor General's Award for Poetry. Paré was also shortlisted for the BC Dorothy Livesay BC Award for Poetry.
CBC
25-02-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Blockade by Christine Lowther
West Coast activist Christine Lowther returns to her blockade years of the early nineties, marked by old-growth occupations, lie-ins and barricades on the frontlines of Vancouver Island's ancient temperate rainforests. In the early 1990s, ancient temperate rainforests on Vancouver Island became the stage for mass blockades against clearcut logging in Nuučaańuł territory. Until the more recent struggles at Fairy Creek, Clayoquot Sound hosted the largest act of civil disobedience in Canada. National news coverage at the time showed mothers with their babies, grandparents, business people, and many other unlikely activists standing on the logging road or locked to makeshift structures, risking arrest to defend these rare, evolved ecosystems. Christine Lowther was arrested in 1992 for lying across the Clayoquot Arm bridge while MacMillan Bloedel fallers tried to drive to work with their chainsaws. Blockade is her gripping, first-hand account of the joys, struggles, and victories of this historic movement. Drawing from her daily journals recorded at the time, Lowther recounts the vibrant and tense atmosphere of confronting police and loggers with nonviolent civil disobedience. She vividly describes creative direct actions—themed blockades, lock-downs, nighttime barricade building, occupations of ancient trees and government offices. Blockade contemplates the stark realities of the movement, including threats of police violence and the disturbing collusion between the RCMP and extraction corporations. Despite the powderkeg atmosphere, Lowther found wonder by kayaking the inlets and settling down to life in unceded Tlaoquiaht territory where she still gratefully resides. Blockade is a celebration of resilience and a powerful account of successful environmental activism. It highlights the continuing threat to old-growth forests, with a nod to Fairy Creek, and commends the June 18, 2024 announcement of 76,000 hectares of new conservancies in Clayoquot (Tlaoquiaht) Sound, nearly doubling the protected temperate rainforest within this iconic region. Thrilling, evocative, and necessary, Christine Lowther's Blockade showcases the need to defend remnant intact crucial ecosystems hand in hand with the Indigenous peoples whose ancestral gardens these lands are. It is a rallying cry of hope for all those who stand up for the natural world and a roadmap for future generations of defenders. (From Caitlin Press) Hazard, Home. She served as Tofino's poet laureate from 2020-2022.
