Heather Ramsay — A Room in the Forest
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Join us for the Calgary launch of former Haida Gwaii reporter Heather Ramsay’s debut novel. The event will feature an author reading, book signing and conversation with Erin Steel.
You can purchase the book here: https://shorturl.at/5vRJY
ABOUT THE BOOK
Nineteen-year-old Lily knows she doesn’t belong at a dead-end job in her father’s small-town Alberta furniture store, not when she’s been offered a job in the ancient forests of Haida Gwaii. But her search for a sense of place becomes more complicated when a band of tree planters she meets on the road question her assumptions about whose land she is moving towards. Once at the logging camp, the rugged work and her rough co-workers make her even more uncertain about where she fits in.
While measuring trees, Lily sees a mysterious figure who disappeared into the forest years before. Is he a man or a myth? Everyone has a different opinion. With a logging protest looming, Lily’s co-worker Chaz—a young half-Haida man whose white father owns the logging camp—ditches his job in the forest. As she meets more locals and learns about the community, Lily discovers surprising secrets about her estranged mother’s time in the area—and that her connection to this place may not be what she thought. Do the rumours Lily keeps hearing about a mysterious hermit have anything to do with her? As more and more questions rise to the surface, Lily plunges deeper into the forest to find out.
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Heather Ramsay lives and writes in unceded Ts’elxwéyeqw territory (otherwise known as Chilliwack, BC) and is heavily influenced by place. The 10 years she lived on Haida Gwaii, the seven years she lived in Wet’suwet’en territory, her childhood in Treaty 7 – Tsuutina and Blackfoot Territory (otherwise known as Calgary, Alberta), it’s all in there somewhere. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and has been published in The Tyee, The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Numero Cinq, Canadian Geographic, local newspapers and elsewhere.
Erin Steel recently completed her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia where she received a Faculty of Arts Graduate Award and the Iser Steiman Memorial Scholarship in Translation. Her short fiction has been published in subTerrain, and it received an honourable mention in their Lush Triumphant contest. Prior to her MFA, she worked as a high school French, English, and Social Studies teacher in both BC and Alberta. Erin lives and writes in Calgary, on the traditional territories of the Treaty 7 Nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsuut’ina, the lyarhe Nakoda Nations, and the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation with Alberta District 6.
Get Tickets
You can purchase the book here: https://shorturl.at/5vRJY
ABOUT THE BOOK
Nineteen-year-old Lily knows she doesn’t belong at a dead-end job in her father’s small-town Alberta furniture store, not when she’s been offered a job in the ancient forests of Haida Gwaii. But her search for a sense of place becomes more complicated when a band of tree planters she meets on the road question her assumptions about whose land she is moving towards. Once at the logging camp, the rugged work and her rough co-workers make her even more uncertain about where she fits in.
While measuring trees, Lily sees a mysterious figure who disappeared into the forest years before. Is he a man or a myth? Everyone has a different opinion. With a logging protest looming, Lily’s co-worker Chaz—a young half-Haida man whose white father owns the logging camp—ditches his job in the forest. As she meets more locals and learns about the community, Lily discovers surprising secrets about her estranged mother’s time in the area—and that her connection to this place may not be what she thought. Do the rumours Lily keeps hearing about a mysterious hermit have anything to do with her? As more and more questions rise to the surface, Lily plunges deeper into the forest to find out.
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Heather Ramsay lives and writes in unceded Ts’elxwéyeqw territory (otherwise known as Chilliwack, BC) and is heavily influenced by place. The 10 years she lived on Haida Gwaii, the seven years she lived in Wet’suwet’en territory, her childhood in Treaty 7 – Tsuutina and Blackfoot Territory (otherwise known as Calgary, Alberta), it’s all in there somewhere. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and has been published in The Tyee, The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Numero Cinq, Canadian Geographic, local newspapers and elsewhere.
Erin Steel recently completed her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia where she received a Faculty of Arts Graduate Award and the Iser Steiman Memorial Scholarship in Translation. Her short fiction has been published in subTerrain, and it received an honourable mention in their Lush Triumphant contest. Prior to her MFA, she worked as a high school French, English, and Social Studies teacher in both BC and Alberta. Erin lives and writes in Calgary, on the traditional territories of the Treaty 7 Nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsuut’ina, the lyarhe Nakoda Nations, and the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation with Alberta District 6.
Get Tickets
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