Saskatchewan Book Week Events 2022
Book Week Channels: Facebook and Youtube
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
5:00pm LIVE at Round Prairie Library, Saskatoon
Author Reading by Jennifer S. Wallace
Ruth Williamson, aka Miss G, grew up in Jamaica. She left at a young age, under her mother’s direction, to pursue a nursing education in England. Ruth then chose her own path, which led her to Canada, like so many immigrants in the late 1960s. Unlike many immigrants from the Caribbean at the time, Ruth ended up in rural Saskatchewan, working as a nurse while adjusting to the culture and climate of the Canadian Prairies.
Ruth’s life is one of resilience and determination. She married Ian MacLeod in Saskatoon in 1971, blending cultures in a mixed-race marriage that was unusual for its era. She built a nursing career that spanned over forty years, and mentored women and children from other countries and backgrounds.
It wasn’t until the nickname “Miss G” came up during a phone call from Jamaica that her daughter, author Jennifer Wallace, began asking more questions and unravelling the mysteries of her mother’s life, Miss G and Me: A Daughter’s Memoir uses anecdotes, journals, poetry, and personal essays to weave together the story of Ruth (Williamson) MacLeod – Miss G. Readers are invited on this lyrical, gentle journey to discover Ruth’s path and ultimately connect with their own history.
Links – Facebook Event – Youtube
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
7:00pm LIVE at Round Prairie Library, Saskatoon
Presentation and Flintknapping Demonstration by the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society
Points of View: A Guide on Saskatchewan Projectile Points with Indigenous Perspectives is one of the most important projects the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society has undertaken in its nearly 60-year history. Dr. Tomasin Playford, Executive Director of the Society, will explain how this publication goes beyond fulfilling the need for an identification guide – by its very nature, this publication is a reconciliation project that places Indigenous ways of knowing on par with scientific methods. Gabriel Lamarche, a master’s student in archaeology at the University of Saskatchewan, first experienced archaeology in his youth on Beausoleil Island, the one-time home of his Anishinaabek ancestors. He is now a well-practiced flintknapper and is always eager to share his passion and interest in the ancient crafting traditions.
Links – Facebook Event – Youtube
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27
7:00pm LIVE at the Gabriel Dumont Institute, Saskatoon
An Evening of Métis Writing
Join us for an evening of Métis writing at the Gabriel Dumont Institute Gallery (917 22nd Street West, Saskatoon) from 7-8:30pm, Tuesday, September 27th! The evening will feature authors Diana Hope Tegenkamp, Allyson Stevenson, Arnolda Dufour Bowes, and Lisa Bird-Wilson, each reading a selection of their work. Métis writing comes in all forms and we invite you to enjoy poetry, non-fiction, short story, and fiction! Brought to you in partnership with Gabriel Dumont Institute Press, Saskatchewan Ânskohk Writing Circle Inc., and SaskBooks!
Links – Facebook Event
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28
5:00pm LIVE at North Battleford Public Library
Author Reading by Miguel A. Fenrich
Book Description – Wolfe is one of the millions of blue-eyed workers who toil beneath the cruel, overbearing thumb of BESNA, a brown-eyed supremacy organization that has convinced a future society that blue-eyed people are lazy, weak, and inferior to the brown-eyed majority. When Wolfe hears rumours of a mounting plot to overthrow a luxurious eastern plantation that thrives off enslaved, blue-eyed labour, Wolfe must decide if the threat of death is worse than slavery to his brown-eyed masters. Thrust into possible rebellion and a vast journey across the North American continent, will Wolfe, posed against monstrous opposition, change the world?
Links – Facebook Event – Youtube
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29
5:00pm ONLINE via Youtube and FaceBook
Author Reading by Steven Ross Smith
Steven Ross Smith has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He is known for his seven-book poetic exploration fluttertongue. He is also an arts journalist specializing in literary and visual arts. Over many decades he’s been effective too as a literary activist, on behalf of writers—speaking, teaching, organizing, blogging, editing, and presenting. He has lived and written in Toronto, Saskatoon, Banff, Winnipeg, on Galiano Island, and now in Victoria. Two chapbooks featuring his work were recently published with Saskatoon’s JackPine Press: Table for Four, was created with Winnipeggers Ted Landrum, Jennifer Still, and Colin Smith in 2020, and Steven’s final book in his fluttertongue series—coda: fluttertongue 7, appeared in 2021, designed by Brian Kachur. Smith served as Banff Poet Laureate 2019-2021. He was the founding Director of Sage Hill Writing Experience and Director of Literary Arts at the Banff Centre. Glimmer: Short Fictions with Radiant Press is his fourteenth book.
Links – Facebook Event – Youtube
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29
7:00pm ONLINE via Youtube and FaceBook
Author Reading by Wes Olson
The Ecological Buffalo: On the trail of a keystone species – The mere mention of the term Buffalo instantly brings to mind the vast herds that once roamed this continent. Few wild animals captivate our imaginations as much as the bison of North America. Once numbering in the tens of millions, these magnificent creatures played a significant role in structuring all the varied ecosystems they occupied. For at least 24,000 years North American Indigenous peoples depended upon them, and it was the abundance of bison across the continent that initially facilitated the dispersal of humankind across the continent.
With the arrival of Europeans and their rapacious capacity for wildlife destruction, the dominant mammal on the continent was all-but exterminated, seemingly in the blink of an eye. And with them went all of the intricate food webs, the trophic cascades, and the inter-species relationships that had evolved over thousands of years. It all came to a catastrophic end over a 30 year period in the mid-1800s. From more than 30 million, plains bison were reduced to just 23 wild bison in the heart of Yellowstone National Park (plus 250 in zoos and on farms). Plains bison were completely extirpated from Canada by the mid-1880s, and across northern Canada, only 250 wood bison remained.
Despite this brush with extinction, plains and wood bison survived and isolated populations are today slowly recovering. As this recovery proceeds, the relationships the animals once had with thousands of other species are being re-established in a remarkable process of ecological healing. The intricacy of those restored relationships is the subject of this presentation.
Links – Facebook Event – Youtube
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30
5:00pm ONLINE Video Premiere on Youtube and Facebook
Cooking Demo Video Premiere from Baba Sophie’s Ukrainian Cookbook by Marion Mutala
Who wants to try some Borscht? Author Marion Mutala shows us how to make borscht the way her mother did in this cooking demonstration video, brought to you by SaskBooks. Join us for an afternoon of Ukrainian music and cuisine as Marion and her sister cook from a recipe in Baba Sophie’s Ukrainian Cookbook and perform songs and poetry for the audience. Come watch if you want to learn how Baba Sophie would cook this traditional Ukrainian dish. This event is sure to be a delicious one!
Links – Facebook Event – Youtube
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30
7:00pm ONLINE via Youtube and Facebook
Poetry Reading by Belinda Betker
In Phases, Belinda Betker deftly captures what it is like for those who don’t fit within rigid notions of what it means to be a “boy” or a “girl”. Capturing different phases in a life, with power and nuance she takes readers on a luminous journey of a young girl’s coming-of-age, her burgeoning sexuality (and the confusion and disorientation therein), the pitfalls of an unhappy marriage, the triumphant release of coming out, and the liberating power of drag.
In these poems, readers will find a celestial and transcendent re-discovering of the self, an unraveling of society’s expectations of gender roles, love, and desire and how these falsehoods threaten to eclipse our truth. Phases slides through time, summoning profound memories of the loss of childhood innocence through each gendered ritual, yet the resilient heart of a tomboy who stands up to bullies and can “tie a tie better than anyone” is too powerful to suppress. Betker then takes us into adulthood-an experience cut sharp by the “dark side of the moon” with a health crisis and surgery-and the victorious recovery and unearthing of buried desire and resplendent sensuality. Phases is mercurial and unpredictable, a celebration of the non-conformist in each of us.
Links – Facebook Event – Youtube