I’m laughing to myself as I write this, wondering if anyone out there follows the blog of someone who only updates twice a year. My bad.
I have a few things to report about That Lonely Section of Hell. The first is that the Ontario Library Association has named it a nominee for their 2016 Evergreen Award. Have a look at the list; I think you’ll agree the book is in very impressive company and I don’t know if I’m even qualified to carry their laptops, but I’m deeply honoured.
The wonderful people at the Campbell River Words on the Water Writers’ Festival have kindly invited me to join them on March 11 and 12 to talk writing and the book. I’m thrilled to be partnered with the incredibly accomplished Tracey Lindberg, author of Birdie, another Evergreen Award nominee and CBC Canada Reads selection for 2016. Check out her bio, there’s too much for me to enter here! I’m very excited to hang with her.
Listen to this CBC Doc Project documentary via Definitely Not the Opera on CBC Radio One (the link is live now, but airing Feb. 6) for Angela Sterritt’s moving piece on the life and work of Indigenous activist Lorelei Williams. I talk with Angela as she and I walk near the site of the Pickton farm, which is somewhere I haven’t been since Feb. 2002. Both Lorelei and Angela are talented, brave, resilient, Indigenous women I’m deeply in awe of.
Still in the works, but I’m planning to head up to the Whistler area in March to speak with a group of people at the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre about the book and missing and murdered indigenous women. I’m looking forward to this very much, thanks to Linda Epp for making it happen. More details once I know.