Indigenous Peoples
Synopsis:
There are times in a parent's life when they ask why am I doing this? It's so hard. That is, until those occasions of magic happen, and they always do. Parenthood is a journey with no road map. And it is the children who most often steer the ship. In her new collection of poetry, Essential Ingredients, Carol Rose GoldenEagle recalls when Creator's blessings have truly been bestowed in a parent's shared life with their children. Poems examine hardship and struggle, triumph of spirit and joy, and serve as a reminder to all parents that childhood is fleeting. This beautiful volume is a celebration of parenthood, in the form of love letters to the poet's children. It is ultimately a tribute to the memories of those many magic moments which define love, purpose and pride.
Additional Information
100 pages | 6.00" x 7.50" | Paperback
Synopsis:
Nowhere in the texts on counselling, recovery, or lifespan development does it make links between well-being and not having your land stolen. When an entire people are generally portrayed as mentally ill, because that is, of course, what it means to have a diagnosis of clinical depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder, it is easy for the State to view these people as unfit to manage their lives. Then, all sorts of functions are performed on Indigenous families that are tantamount to victim-blaming formulations that, in the end, deny opportunities associated with full citizenship.
The author goes beyond offering social analysis, and possible pathways toward healing, and shares her own experience as an Indigenous woman with Metis, Cree and Gwichin heritage. She talks about her approach to a second cancer diagnosis, and explores the way she characterized her experience of chemotherapy and radiation in a way that cast the journey as personal and heroic, rather than merely medical and out of her control.
One of the main contributions of this book is a discussion of how mainstream counselling and the helping professions have overlooked important facts about oppression, including the reminder from Gloria Steinem that the personal is political.
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135 Pages | 6” x 9” | Paperback
Synopsis:
A New Testament in English by Native North Americans for Native North Americans and All English-Speaking Peoples
Many First Nations tribes communicate with the cultural and linguistic thought patterns found in their original tongues. The First Nations Version (FNV) recounts the Creator's Story—the Christian Scriptures—following the tradition of Native storytellers' oral cultures. This way of speaking, with its simple yet profound beauty and rich cultural idioms, still resonates in the hearts of First Nations people.
The FNV is a dynamic equivalence translation of the New Testament that captures the simplicity, clarity, and beauty of Native storytellers in English, while remaining faithful to the original language of the Bible. The culmination of a rigorous five-year translation process, this new Bible translation is a collaboration between organizations like OneBook and Wycliffe Associates, Indigenous North Americans from over twenty-five different tribes, and a translation council that consisted of twelve Native North American elders, pastors, young adults, and men and women from different tribes and diverse geographic locations. Whether you are Native or not, you will experience the Scriptures in a fresh and new way.
Read these sample passages to get a taste of what you'll find inside:
"The Great Spirit loves this world of human beings so deeply he gave us his Son—the only Son who fully represents him. All who trust in him and his way will not come to a bad end, but will have the life of the world to come that never fades—full of beauty and harmony. Creator did not send his Son to decide against the people of this world, but to set them free from the worthless ways of the world." John 3:16-17
"Love is patient and kind. Love is never jealous. It does not brag or boast. It is not puffed up or big-headed. Love does not act in shameful ways, nor does it care only about itself. It is not hot-headed, nor does it keep track of wrongs done to it. Love is not happy with lies and injustice, but truth makes its heart glad. Love keeps walking even when carrying a heavy load. Love keeps trusting, never loses hope, and stands firm in hard times. The road of love has no end." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Reviews
"While Wildman recasts the New Testament in a distinctly Indigenous image, he remains faithful to evangelical interpretations of Christian scripture, typified in the many italicized explanations that appear throughout and are meant to add 'reasonably implied' clarifications and cultural notes, such as explication on ancient festivals like the Pentecost. This remarkable retelling offers plenty of rewards and will especially pique those open to a novel interpretation of the religious text." — Publishers Weekly starred review, August 2021
"Reading the First Nations Version of the New Testament is like listening to a wise elder pass down ancient teachings. Its oral cadences give the Scriptures new room to breathe. While contemporary translations focus on updating language in a modern mode, the FNV recaptures the sense of tradition that binds faithful readers to our past and to the story that tells us who we are. It is a good gift to everyone who walks the Jesus Way." — L. Daniel Hawk, professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary
"From the beginning, the story of Jesus has been a translated story. Jesus spoke in Aramaic, but Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote their Gospels in Greek. The story of Jesus is intended to be translated to every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. That translation is intended, not just permitted, serves to show how we must resist any cultural domination of the gospel. Terry Wildman has done a masterful job of rendering the New Testament into the storytelling motif characteristic of Native Americans. It should tell us something important when we realize how beautifully the story of Jesus can be adapted to the style and vocabulary of indigenous people. I deeply appreciate Terry Wildman's retelling of the story of Jesus for First Nations people. I believe the Great Spirit is pleased." — Brian Zahnd, pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri, and author of Beauty Will Save the World
"I've often wondered what it might look like if Jesus incarnated within another culture. Jesus, a first-century Jewish teacher in a corner of Rome's empire, lived, died, and rose as a human being within a specific time and place. What I love about the First Nations Version is how it translates this gospel story into a language of another context: First Nations! So get swept away into the story of the Great Spirit as he invites us to the blessing way of the good road. Read this beautiful retelling of the Scriptures that is not only beneficial for First Nations communities but for all who desire to allow the Great Spirit to transform their imaginations!" — Kurt Willems, pastor and auth
Educator Information
The First Nations Version (FNV) Translation Council consists of twelve First Nations individuals representing a cross-section of Native North Americans—elders, pastors, young adults, and men and women from differing tribes and diverse geographic locations. This council also represents a diversity of church and denominational traditions to minimize bias. The council determined the style and method of translation to be used and continues to be involved in ongoing translation, review, and cultural consultation. The FNV is a dynamic equivalence translation produced in partnership with Rain Ministries and OneBook Canada, with help from Wycliffe Associates.
AdditionalInformation
512 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show is a flamboyant epic, constructed as a series of tableaux, about the struggles of the Métis in the Canadian West. It is a multilayered and entertaining saga with a rodeo vibe, loosely based on Buffalo Bill’s legendary outdoor travelling show. In 1885, following the hanging of his friend Louis Riel, bison hunter Gabriel Dumont fled to the United States. There he was recruited by the legendary Buffalo Bill, founder of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a gigantic outdoor travelling show that re-enacted life in the American West. It made a huge impression on Dumont, and he dreamed of putting together a similar show to tell the story of the struggle of Canada’s Métis to reclaim their rights.
The creative team behind Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show – including ten authors, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, French- and English-speaking men and women – brings Dumont’s dream to life in a captivating, joyously anachronistic saga. The theatrical version of Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show presented by the National Arts Centre was one of a number of exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter initiative. (Adapted from nac-cna.ca/en/wildwestshow).
This is a bilingual book, co-published with Éditions Prise de parole, and enhanced with a historical background, a chronology of the Métis Resistances, and visual documents.
Reviews
“Really excellent. I laughed till I cried!” —Marilou Lamontagne, ICI Radio-Canada Ottawa-Gatineau
“[A] play that pleases, puzzles, and provokes, in a form that keeps shifting wildly from one moment to the next like a bucking bronco.”—J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe and Mail
“If Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show is so successful, while being funny and sad at the same time, it’s because the creative team did its research and listened to the communities involved in the rehabilitating of the figure of Gabriel Dumont. What takes shape here is a wave of madness and a rewriting of our national narrative.”—Maud Cucchi, JEU Revue de théâtre
“Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show is a crazed, fast-paced Métis 101 history lesson, in which acidity and humour deliver the story.”—Martin Vanasse, Radio-Canada
“[A] seamlessly cohesive narrative ... a zany form ... a phantasmagorical piece of pure entertainment ... a delirious blend of historical drama, musical, burlesque cabaret, hockey night, and TV quiz!”—Pierre-Alexandre Buisson
“Between bursts of laughter (of the uneasy sort at times) and moments of lively emotion, Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show takes [us] on a journey up hill and down dale through the history of the Métis Resistances and tells an oft-forgotten part of our collective history.” - Valérie Lessard, Le Droit
Additional Information
304 pages | 5.40" x 8.50" | Paperback
Synopsis:
Stories are medicine. During a time of heightened isolation, bestselling author Richard Van Camp shares what he knows about the power of storytelling—and offers some of his own favourite stories from Elders, friends, and family.
Gathering around a campfire, or the dinner table, we humans have always told stories. Through them, we define our identities and shape our understanding of the world.
Master storyteller and bestselling author Richard Van Camp writes of the power of storytelling and its potential to transform speakers and audiences alike.
In Gather, Van Camp shares what elements make a compelling story and offers insights into basic storytelling techniques, such as how to read a room and how to capture the attention of listeners. And he delves further into the impact storytelling can have, helping readers understand how to create community and how to banish loneliness through their tales. A member of the Tlicho Dene First Nation, Van Camp also includes stories from Elders whose wisdom influenced him.
During a time of uncertainty and disconnection, stories reach across vast distances to offer connection. Gather is a joyful reminder of this for storytellers: all of us.
Reviews
“Stories and storytellers are an important part of what makes us human. Van Camp’s stories, whether they feature light comedy, family discord and reconciliation or his vivid images of the legendary Wheetago monsters, revived by global warming and horrifically hungry for human flesh, are gifts to the reader.” —Vancouver Sun
“Van Camp is…a brilliant weaver of tales.” —Quill & Quire
Additional Information
162 pages | 5.00" x 8.50"
Synopsis:
For 34 years, Lynn Gehl fought against the sex discrimination built into Canada’s Indian Act. This is the story of her challenges and eventual success.
A follow-up to Claiming Anishinaabe, Gehl v Canada is the story of Lynn Gehl’s lifelong journey of survival against the nation-state’s constant genocidal assault against her existence. While Canada set up its colonial powers—including the Supreme Court, House of Commons, Senate Chamber, and the Residences of the Prime Minister and Governor General—on her traditional Algonquin territory, usurping the riches and resources of the land, she was pushed to the margins, exiled to a life of poverty in Toronto’s inner-city.
With only beads in her pocket, Gehl spent her entire life fighting back, and now offers an insider analysis of Indian Act litigation, the narrow remedies the court imposes, and of obfuscating parliamentary discourse, as well as an important critique of the methodology of legal positivism. Drawing on social identity and Indigenous theories, the author presents Disenfranchised Spirit Theory, revealing insights into the identity struggles facing Indigenous Peoples to this day.
Reviews
“Congratulations . . . to Dr. Lynn Gehl for her successful challenge of the Indian Registrar’s refusal to allow her to be registered under the Indian Act. . . . Good win, Lynn!”—The Honourable Murray Sinclair
“With knowledge and experience from years of advocacy before Parliament as well as the courts, and the depth of perception typical of all her scholarly work, Dr. Gehl assesses what more is needed before the Indian Act system can be truly egalitarian. Her book is unique and inspiring.” —Mary Eberts, from the foreword
“[R]emarkable . . . a monument in Indigenous struggles with the colonial Crown.” —Veldon Coburn, Institute of Indigenous Research and Studies at University of Ottawa
“Gehl embodies essential Indigenous wisdom, bravery, and responsibility in her work to dismantle the systems of colonial oppression. Her work serves as a beacon in a network of pathways for our people to make their way home.” —Chief Wendy Jocko, Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn First Nation
“The legal decision in Gehl v Canada will have profound effects for the future, ensuring that hundreds of thousands of Indigenous mothers will be able to pass their status on to their children. This victory, the product of decades of struggle by Lynn Gehl, is chronicled here. Read it and learn!” —Bonita Lawrence, author of Fractured Homeland
Educator Information
This is the follow-up to Claiming Anishinaabe.
Centres Anishinaabe methods of personal truth over western academia.
Introduces readers to the paternity policy of the Indian Art, explaining how this policy was sexual discrimination and bloodless genocide. The paternity policy of the Indian Act required individuals claiming Status to demonstrate the lineage of both parents. Harmful to Indigenous mothers and children, and imposing a high evidentiary burden on Indigenous people claiming Status, it was overturned on April 20, 2017, in what is now known as the Gehl decision.
Additional Information
288 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
Award-winning author Linda LeGarde Grover interweaves family and Ojibwe history with stories from Misaabekong (the place of the giants) on Lake Superior.
Long before there was a Duluth, Minnesota, the massive outcropping that divides the city emerged from the ridge of gabbro rock running along the westward shore of Lake Superior. A great westward migration carried the Ojibwe people to this place, the Point of Rocks. Against this backdrop—Misaabekong, the place of the giants—the lives chronicled in Linda LeGarde Grover’s book unfold, some in myth, some in long-ago times, some in an imagined present, and some in the author’s family history, all with a deep and tenacious bond to the land, one another, and the Ojibwe culture.
Within the larger history, Grover tells the story of her ancestors’ arrival at the American Fur Post in far western Duluth more than two hundred years ago. Their fortunes and the family’s future are inextricably entwined with tales of marriages to voyageurs, relocations to reservation lands, encounters with the spirits of the lake and wood creatures, the renewal of life—in myth and in art, the search for meaning in the transformations of our day is always vital. Finally, in one man’s struggles, age-old tribulations, the intergenerational traumas of extended families and communities, and a uniquely Ojibwe appreciation for the natural and spiritual worlds converge, forging the Ojibwe worldview and will to survive as his legacy to his descendants.
Blending the seen and unseen, the old and the new, the amusing and the tragic and the hauntingly familiar, this lyrical work encapsulates a way of life forever vibrant at the Point of Rocks.
Reviews
"With compelling stories of sacred places, beloved people, myths, legends, and treasured memories, Gichigami Hearts is a moving tribute to the Ojibwe past."— Carolyn Holbrook, author of Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify
"With stories of the essence of land and people, Linda LeGarde Grover weaves a generational history of a sacredness inseparable from place, of the unbroken chain of Anishinaabe existence in Missabekong. Her powerful prose and ethereal poetry wash over the pages like waves along the shore of Lake Superior, revealing a strength of survival that goes beyond memory and reminding us to watch, listen, and breathe."—Gwen Westerman, Minnesota State University, Mankato
"In Linda LeGarde Grover’s Gichigami Hearts, we are given the gift of an intensely personal, and at the same time brilliant, walkthrough of Grover’s part of the Anishinaabe universe. Just a tremendously lovely and unique book."—Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse
Educator Information
Contents
Part I. Point of Rocks
Gabbro
An Old Story
Bimosewin: From the Bethel to the Union Gospel Mission
From the Rocks to the Docks
Anishinaabe Relatives and Holy Places
Grandparents
Life Among the Italians
The Beanbag
Rain, Fog, Ghost, Spider
Part II. Gichigami Hearts
Waawaashkeshi
Mooz
Lake Hearts
Lake Spirits
Sea Smoke on Gichigami
Barney-enjiss
The Stone Tomahawk
Part III. Rabbits in Wintertime
Listening and Remembering By Heart
Rabbits in the Snow
Niizh Odain: The Wolf and the Rabbit
The Harbor: Nanaboozhoo’s Brothers of the Heart
Woods Lovely, Dark, and Deep
Rabbits Watching Over Onigamiising
Part IV. Traveling Song
The End and Renewal of the Earth
Redemption
Mishomis
Grandfather-iban Gi-bimose
Places Remembered, Though Some Have Changed
Homeland
Traveling Song
Acknowledgments
Additional Information
200 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | 8 Black and white illustrations | Paperback
Synopsis:
This stellar debut collection by Métis poet Diana Hope Tegenkamp takes us through many worlds and wonders. In Girl running, we find solace and outrage, grief and tenderness, bewilderment and beauty, all “entangled in hope and dreaming.” The poet’s love of the natural world is both earthy and adamantine, and her passion for literature and art is just as rich a source for her questioning eye.
On the edge of Saskatoon, a woman opens a car door and flees. A child runs away from residential school after a beating. A Métis man’s ghost gallops on a ghost horse across the prairies. Henry James’ 19th-century heroine, Isabel Archer, runs across a wintery yard. Lana Tisdel drives away from Falls City, Nebraska, after the murder of her transgender boyfriend.
After many losses—of a mother known and loved, of a Métis father unknown and imagined—the ‘girl’ of this collection is running towards and away from mortality. In these poems, disappearances, perpetual flights, river walks, shadowy descents and miraculous returns connect daily living and mortality, current social realities and ancient histories, the surface and the subterranean depths of our complicated lives. Lovers of contemporary Canadian poetry will find that this textured collection rewards reading and rereading.
Additional Information
120 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback
Synopsis:
Home is where we love, suffer, and learn. Some homes we chose, others are inflicted upon us, and still others are bodies we are born into. In this astounding collection of stories, human and more-than-human worlds come together in places we call home.
Four sisters and their mother explore their fears while teeny ghost people dress up in fragments of their children’s clothes. A somewhat-ghost tends the family garden. Deep in the mountains, a shapeshifting mother must sift through her ancestors’ gifts and the complexities of love when one boy is born with a beautiful set of fox ears and another is not. In the wake of her elderly mother’s tragic death, a daughter tries to make sense of the online dating profile she left behind. And a man named Pooka finds new ways to weave new stories into his abode, in spite of his inherited suffering.
A startling and beguiling story collection, Glorious Frazzled Beings is a love song to the homes we make, keep, and break.
Reviews
"Sly, mythical, wise, Glorious Frazzled Beings is an extraordinary work of non-conformist daring: a boy is born with fox ears, an abandoned pregnancy test is encountered by random women in mall bathroom, an overwhelmed mother makes clothing for tiny ghosts. With sharp visionary instinct, Lalonde not only confronts both the magic and cruelty of living, and the border between worlds, mythical and visceral — she lights it on fire. Brilliantly alive, full of devastation and wonder, reading these stories will change you.” — Heidi Sopinka, author of The Dictionary of Animal Languages
“Glorious Frazzled Beings is storytelling magic — a haunting dream of a book, by turns strange and powerfully lucid. I’m captivated by the relations so boldly evoked. I’m moved by the intimacies, the wicked humour, the glorious dare of play. Angélique Lalonde is an original talent who is channeling forces far beyond us in this urgent debut.” — David Chariandy, author of Brother
From the author: "My writing is deeply inspired by walking and being on the land. I see my writing practice as part of my being practice, which is a continuous learning about how to be in relationship with land, place, and the beings who I am responsible to in sharing land. There is a lot to learn and unlearn in this process because we all live on Indigenous lands, whether we are settlers or Indigenous people, or both. I currently live on Gitxsan territory as an uninvited guest so walking on the land is always political as well as spiritual and these complexities emerge in my writing. Lady with the big head chronicle, the first story in my collection, explores some of these complexities from a fictionalized first-person narrator’s point of view. I learned how to walk on the land from my mother, and have always been a displaced person with an unclear relationship to my mother’s ancestors. So I carry her, and my own ancestors with me when I walk and write, sifting through what I’ve inherited and the land and language that holds my walking. I have been blessed to have had several dog friends accompany on my walks throughout my life. They help orient me to a world beyond my human knowing, and these learnings also inspire my writing" - from "Scotiabank Giller Prize Spotlight: Angélique Lalonde"
Educator Information
Curriculum Connections: Short Stories, Small Town and Rural, Family Life, Magical Realism
Additional Information
304 pages | 5.50" x 7.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
Go Down Odawa Way is a poetry collection that explores the physical, historical, and cultural spaces that make up the southwestern traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy. This is the region currently inhabited by southwestern Ontario and southeastern Michigan. Individual poems and sections of this collection explore the documented villages, history, and mythologies of the Odawa, Ojibway, Huron/Wendat, and Pottawatomi nations that were lost to the process of colonization and relocation. The project speaks to the history of the region that predates contemporary Canadian and American borders and namings as well as carves out a history that extends back past the mere couple of centuries of European colonization. The narrative focal point of the pieces find their roots in the traditional Lenape vantage point of the author and seeks to draw on the experiences of a modern day urban Indian in connection with the manner that land has changed with non-Indigenous settlement and those that inhabit it.
Additional Information
76 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback
Synopsis:
How do we reconcile the sanctity of Indigenous burial grounds with the desire to study them?
Whether by curious Boy Scouts and “backyard archaeologists” or competitive collectors and knowledge-hungry anthropologists, the excavation of Native remains is a practice fraught with injustice and simmering resentments.
Grave Matters is the history of the treatment of Native remains in California and the story of the complicated relationship between researcher and researched. Tony Platt begins his journey with his son’s funeral at Big Lagoon, a seaside village in pastoral Humboldt County in Northern California, once O-pyúweg, a bustling center for the Yurok and the site of a plundered native cemetery. Platt travels the globe in search of the answer to the question: How do we reconcile a place of extraordinary beauty with its horrific past?
Grave Matters centers the Yurok people and the eventual movement to repatriate remains and reclaim ancient rights, but it is also a universal story of coming to terms with the painful legacy of a sorrowful past. This book, originally published in 2011, is updated here with a preface by the author.
Reviews
“A new edition on the tenth anniversary of Tony Platt's extraordinary work, Grave Matters, could not come at a more important moment when the precariousness of the planet itself recalls the genocide unleashed by European and Euroamerican colonialism that endures and continues to haunt descendants of the perpetrators, many of whom engage in ghoulish thefts of the remains of the dead. In his own grieving for a lost son, Platt enters a circle of grieving in the Yurok nation, becoming a powerful voice for decolonization and the protection of Indigenous grave sites.” —Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
Additional Information
256 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
How can churches carry out their commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples?
Honouring the Declaration provides academic resources to help The United Church of Canada and other Canadian denominations enact their commitment to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and offers a framework for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Featuring essays from scholars working from a range of disciplines, including religious studies, Indigenous legal studies, Christian theology and ethics, Biblical studies, Indigenous educational leadership within the United Church, and social activism, the collection includes both Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices, all of whom respond meaningfully to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action.
The texts explore some of the challenges that accepting the UN Declaration as a framework poses to the United Church and other Canadian denominations, and provides academic reflection on how these challenges can be met. These reflections include concrete proposals for steps that Canadian denominations and their seminaries need to take in light of their commitment to the Declaration, a study of a past attempt of the United Church to be in solidarity with Indigenous peoples, and discussions of ethical concepts and theological doctrines that can empower and guide the church in living out this commitment.
Reviews
“[A] truly seminal work among the schools of theology in Canada.” —Michel Andraos, Dean of Theology, Université Saint-Paul and editor of The Church and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas
Educator Information
Provides a framework for UNDRIP's implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action for Canadian churches to address and mitigate spiritual violence towards Indigenous Peoples.
Written by scholars at St. Andrew's College, Indigenous scholars, and activist group Iskwewuk Ewichiwitochik/Women Walking Together to provide a framework for the United Church, and other denominations, to adopt UNDRIP and uphold their commitments to reconciliation.
Contributor Sa'ke'j Henderson co-wrote UNDRIP.
Contributors include: James [Sa’ke’j] Youngblood Henderson, Saskatoon, SK; Christine Mitchell, Saskatoon, SK; Lynn Caldwell, Saskatoon, SK; Adrian Jacobs, Beausejour, MB; Sandra Beardsall, Saskatoon, SK; Paul L. Gareau, Edmonton, AB; HyeRan Kim-Cragg, Toronto, ON; Don Schweitzer, Saskatoon, SK; Jennifer Janzen-Ball, Saskatoon, SK; Iskwewuk E-wichiwitochik/ Women Walking Together Collective, Saskatoon, SK
Additional Information
312 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback
Synopsis:
Disability, death and divorce are part of a string of losses that leave this award-winning musician fundamentally changed as she learns to navigate her grief and find a way forward.
Christa Couture lost a piece of herself—in more ways than one. She lost a leg to amputation from childhood bone cancer. She lost a son to complications at birth. She lost another son to a heart defect. She lost a husband to divorce. Each of these losses has left her altered.
In her debut memoir, Couture relives these tragedies alongside the joys that fill the spaces in between. With a quiet wisdom, she explores the dichotomies of grief—how a dismantling necessitates growth, how trauma will at once harden and soften a person. Evoking Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and Rachel Cusk’s A Life’s Work, How to Lose Everything reflects on the emotional and psychological experiences of motherhood, partnership and change.
Couture’s story is an offering of kinship to anyone touched by loss, be that the loss of a physical ability, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a relationship or the loss of one’s sense of self. With gentleness and generosity, How to Lose Everything bears witness to the shift in perspective that comes with grief, and how it can deepen compassion for others, expand understanding, inspire a letting go of little things and plant a deeper feeling for what matters.
Reviews
"Christa’s voice and the things that make her remarkable are so tangible in her narrative: it is bravely open, it is generous when retelling of great sadness, it is candid and kind, with a sharp and quick humour that sneaks up on you in the most delightful way, at the right time. " — Gabrielle Papillon, singer and songwriter
"An astoundingly generous and compelling memoir. I could not put this book down, and I know I will return to these stories over and over again. How to Lose Everything is for anyone who has ever lost someone; for you, perhaps, who have come to know grief; for all of us who have had to learn how to walk again, after falling to the ground." — Smokii Sumac, author of YOU ARE ENOUGH: LOVE POEMS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD
Additional Information
208 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"
Synopsis:
In this unique collection of writings from Ininew Dream Keeper (Pawami niki titi cikiw) Wilfred Buck, he illustrates through astounding stories, four separate stages of personal experience. The stories in I Have Lived Four Lives... are designed as aids to assist in discovery and healing for Indigenous youth, but instead of being didactic, they encompass a range of hilarious and vivid recollections that revolve around visions and dreams, and that ultimately trace Buck's path to becoming a teacher in Indigenous cosmology and astronomy. Beginning by explaining how the word Ininew refers to the phrase mixing of four, Buck embarks upon this series of dazzling stories: herein is the story of how I lived and how I died and how I lived again along with the dreams I have dreamed and the visions I have seen.
Additional Information
6.00" x 9.00"
Synopsis:
A compelling political memoir of leadership and speaking truth to power by one of the most inspiring women of her generation.
Jody Wilson-Raybould was raised to be a leader. Inspired by the example of her grandmother, who persevered throughout her life to keep alive the governing traditions of her people, and raised as the daughter of a hereditary chief and Indigenous leader, Wilson-Raybould always knew she would take on leadership roles and responsibilities. She never anticipated, however, that those roles would lead to a journey from her home community of We Wai Kai in British Columbia to Ottawa as Canada’s first Indigenous Minister of Justice and Attorney General in the Cabinet of then newly elected prime minister, Justin Trudeau.
Wilson-Raybould’s experience in Trudeau’s Cabinet reveals important lessons about how we must continue to strengthen our political institutions and culture, and the changes we must make to meet challenges such as racial justice and climate change. As her initial optimism about the possibilities of enacting change while in Cabinet shifted to struggles over inclusivity, deficiencies of political will, and concerns about adherence to core principles of our democracy, Wilson-Raybould stood on principle and, ultimately, resigned. In standing her personal and professional ground and telling the truth in front of the nation, Wilson-Raybould demonstrated the need for greater independence and less partisanship in how we govern.
"Indian” in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power is the story of why Wilson-Raybould got into federal politics, her experience as an Indigenous leader sitting around the Cabinet table, her proudest achievements, the very public SNC-Lavalin affair, and how she got out and moved forward. Now sitting as an Independent Member in Parliament, Wilson-Raybould believes there is a better way to govern and a better way for politics—one that will make a better country for all.
Additional Information
352 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Hardcover