Places
Place has always played an important role in the story of my life as well as the stories I tell. After graduating from the University of Alberta, I moved with my boyfriend (who eventually became my husband) to the West Coast. As a prairie girl who grew-up in a small town and dreamed of escape, this was my big adventure. We were still living in Vancouver when I began writing my book, but by setting my novel in wintery northern Alberta, I think I was subconsciously working through my conflicted feelings about moving back home.
My husband, Robert, grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The stories about his childhood fascinate me— the nasty fights between the Catholic and Protestant kids in his “mixed” school, nearly getting shot at a check-point, living in fear of pissing off the wrong person. I think the fact that I was raised in the opposing religious background, complete with three aunts who are nuns, fascinates him.
My novel’s main character, Kate Heaney, and her family are transplants to the prairies. The family moved from Northern Ireland when Kate and her brother were teenagers. Midway through the novel, Kate and her brother travel back home to confront their family’s dark history. Both Robert and his cousin’s husband (thank you Tim!) read earlier drafts of my novel and provided valuable feedback on the Northern Ireland scenes and dialogue.
Featured Artist:
Place is central to Bertrand Bickersteth’s poetry collection The Response of Weeds: A Misplacement of Black Poetry on the Prairies. His book “explores what it means to be Black and Albertan through a variety of prisms: historical, biographical, and essentially, geographical” (NeWest Press). In my opinion, the collection should be a part of Alberta’s school curriculum. Bertrand won the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Memorial Award (2020), the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry (2020), and the High Plains Book Awards (first book category). We’ve known Bertrand and his lovely wife since our late teens when we all lived in Edmonton!
