Books published by Caitlin Press

At thirty-eight years old, Ruthie finds herself newly unemployed, freshly single, sleeping on a friend's couch and downing a bottle of wine each night. Having overstayed her welcome and desperate for a job, Ruthie responds to David's ad: he's looking for someone to drive his aging mother, Kay, and her belongings from PEI to Vancouver. Ruthie thinks it's the perfect chance for a brief escape and a much-needed boost for her empty bank account. But once they're on the road, Kay reveals that she's got a list of stops along the way that's equal parts sightseeing tour, sexual bucket-list, and trip down memory lane. As David prods for updates and a speedy arrival to his home in Vancouver, Kay begins to share details about a long-lost love and Ruthie takes a detour to play matchmaker, but finds herself caught up in a web of well-intentioned lies. With the road ahead uncertain, and the past and present colliding, will Ruthie be able to forge a new path? Heartfelt and humorous, The List of Last Chances follows a pair of reluctant travel companions across the country, into an unexpected friendship, new adventures, and the rare gift of second chances.

"By providing a deeper understanding and appreciation of the adoption journey, she enables us to more clearly see and honour adoptive families. ... This memoir shifted my perceptions in the way only compassionate and vulnerable writing can." --Monica Meneghetti, Lambda Literary finalist and award-winning author of What the Mouth Wants When starting the adoption process, Jane Byers and her wife could not have predicted the illuminating and challenging experience of living for two weeks with the Evangelical Christian foster parents of their soon-to-be adopted twins. Parenthood becomes even more daunting when homophobia threatens their beginnings as a family, seeping in from places both unexpected and familiar. In this moving and poetic memoir, Byers draws readers into her own tumultuous beginnings: her coming out years, finding love, and the start of her parenting journey. Little did Byers know that her experiences when coming out was merely training for becoming an adoptive parent of racialized twins. Small Courage: A Queer Memoir of Finding Love and Conceiving Family is a thoughtful and heart-warming examination of love, queerness and what it means to be a family.

The English poet, William Blake said, "joy and woe are woven fine." So it is in The Crooked Thing. In tales delicate and steely, a troubled young ferryman finds himself with an unexpected passenger, a songbird finds its voice, a mother learns to let go of her son and, after a chance encounter, an aging ballerina dances again. In her debut story collection, Mary MacDonald brings each narrator to face their own existence, taking the reader into darkness, passing through fear and resistance, to seek redemption and freedom. At their core these are love stories; they move us, disturb us, and upend our beliefs, to show us characters not all that different from ourselves.

"A compelling memoir by the daughter of convicted polygamist Winston Blackmore explores a young womans journey from polygamy to feminism and independence. As the daughter of Mormon leader Winston Blackmore, Mary Jayne Blackmore grew up within the closed-off polygamist community of Bountiful, BC. She spent her younger years riding ponies, raising pet lambs and playing in the hay in the Old Barn. Her familys staunch Fundamentalist Mormon faith imposed fanatical doomsday preparation and carried an instilled fear of the world outside her community. The church community split in 2002 when her father was revoked of his leadership position by Prophet Warren Jeffs. In 2017 Winston Blackmore was convicted of practicing polygamy further inciting the media sensationalism and worldwide criticism that had surrounded Bountiful for decades. Through the evolving and controversial narrative of her young adult life, Mary Jayne was forced to redefine her faith, family and womanhood for herself. Today, through her work and her personal exploration of feminism, Mary Jayne is helping to heal an injured community, one that she watched turn from safe and loving to defensive and resentful. She is also building her own place in the worldas a teacher, mother, writer and educated womanand she has managed to restore loving bonds with her family, including her father. From a childhood in an idyllic but sheltered community to early adulthood in an arranged marriage, ensuing divorce, and eventual return to Bountiful, Balancing Bountiful is Mary Jaynes journey of coming of age and coming to terms with her background as she strives to answer the question: What is the right kind of family, the right kind of woman and the right kind of feminist?"

DEVOLUTION's quirky, reality-bending poems and fables of extinction and ecological unravelling are haunting and unforgettable.

1950s, New Denver: Pavel and Nina are among 200 Russian Doukhobor children separated from their families and community, and placed in a residential facility in the Kootenay region of BC. Forcibly removed from their homes by the RCMP, the children attend mandatory school. They must speak in English and observe Canadian customs and religious practices. Seeking to protect the younger children and suffering mistreatment at the hands of the officials, Pavel and Nina struggle to keep their culture alive and remain resilient. 2018, Vancouver: After more than ten years in business, William has rejected his Doukhobor heritage and is now adept at juggling the demands of his business importing sporting goods. Surrounded by the material wealth he has amassed, William feels justified in enjoying his prosperity--even if he is emotionally distant from his wife and barely knows his daughter--he has made sacrifices to succeed in life as well as making some shady deals. When a cycling accident ends with William in the hospital with a concussion, doctors discover a mass on his brain. He is rushed into surgery, but instead of improving after his operation, William's life starts to tumble out of control: he loses his grasp on the illegitimate side of his business arrangements, an affair threatens his marriage, an employee turns up dead, and then the police come knocking. These two stories converge as Pavel and Nina leave New Denver and struggle to build a life outside the dormitory walls, while William begins to question his own values, motivations, and accountability. A powerful and emotional novel, The Kissing Fence examines generational trauma through one family's story of obligation, justice, and belonging. A story of conflicting cultural tensions that questions how we define success, identity, and our community.

One murder. Nine months. Two trials. Chad Reimer weaves a captivating tale of murder in early British Columbia as a young man tries desperately to dodge the hangman's noose.

Gold rushes, telegraph lines and railroads, Smith-Josephy reaches into BC's pioneering past to share intriguing stories featuring famous mule train packer, Jean "Cataline" Caux. In the early days of British Columbia, pack trains of horses or mules were a lifeline for the early pioneer population. Explorers, trappers, traders, miners, merchants, workers and settlers and relied on them for the materials needed to live and work. Packers were also vital to the building of railways, roads, and telegraph lines. Pack mule train drivers followed trails created over the years by the First Nations people and later by the fur trading companies, to travel between settlements in the rugged backcountry. The most famous of all the men who ran the pack trains was Jean Caux, who would enter British Columbia's history as the legendary packer "Cataline". Cataline came to North America from Southern France with his brother, eventually landing in British Columbia in 1858. Having learned the trade from Mexican packers in California and Washington, Cataline established a pack train operation that grew to be one of the most well-known and reliable in the province, including securing contracts with the government and Hudson's Bay Company. Cataline witnessed many of the pioneering events that shaped the province, including the Fraser River Gold Rush of 1858, the Cariboo Gold Rush of 1862, the coming of the railway to Ashcroft in 1886, and the Grand Trunk Pacific to Hazelton in 1912. Cataline also crossed paths with significant historical figures such as Judge Matthew Begbie, famed anthropologist James Teit, and Amelia York (ne¿e Paul, daughter of Chief Kowpelst (Telxkn) of the Nlaka'pamux people of Spuzzum), a world-famous First Nations basketmaker, with whom Cataline had two children. In Cataline, the legend and life of the man has been remembered in the words of his friends, his family, and those who chronicled the times and development of the province.

Debut poet Francine Cunningham explores what it means to grow up as an Indigenous, "white passing" young woman in urban Vancouver.

A new collection by award-winning poet Fiona Tinwei Lam that explores what it means to live in an environment constantly under threat and that challenges our perceptions of the everyday, transforming the mundane into the sublime.

In this highly visual and authoritative work, award-winning author and historian Jay Sherwood returns to the Alberta/BC boundary and the survey of one of Canada's most stunningly rugged landscapes.

The remarkable adventures of legendary mountain man Cody Tegart, owner of one of the most successful guide and outfitting businesses in BC, who left his mark on a disappearing way of life.

Governor General award-winning historian Jean Barman describes how a family of mixed Indigenous and white descent faced prejudice in BC, a long-ignored aspect of the province's history.

How do you establish trust and meaningful connection with a sibling who suffers from schizophrenia? In an attempt to rekindle her relationship with her estranged brother Steve, Joan takes him to art the Art Studios in Vancouver, where he takes part in art classes for individuals with a mental illness in a safe, supportive environment. This marks the beginning of a remarkable journey into the healing power of art. Schizophrenia had already done its worst, confounding Steve with voices, hallucinations and delusions. At fifty-five, Steve was in a burn-out phase of schizophrenia with a hunger for creativity. Joans efforts to connect with him through art soon become the vehicle of change. Over the next eight years, Steve progresses both artistically and personally. Together, Steve and Joan explore their art, drawing upon their own resources as they learn to trust one another. Steves artwork provides a glimpse into his perspective, at once both troubled and beautiful. His paintings and drawings are eventually displayed in two solo exhibits at Basic Inquiry Gallery. He attended what would become his final solo show shortly before his death in 2013. One in five North Americans experiences a serious mental health crisis; DrawBridge: Drawing Alongside My Brothers Schizophrenia offers a path of hope for the afflicted and for their advocates. In memory of her brother, Joan has established the Stephen A. Corcoran Memorial Award at Emily Carr University of Art and Design to assist students coping with mental health issues.

A powerful debut collection that explores and celebrates the resilience of bodies and sexualities through the sensual and fantastical.

In The Co-op Revolution: Vancouver's Search for Food Alternatives, author and journalist DeGrass writes about her journey as a founding member of the Collective Resource and Services Workers' Co-op. Bounding to life during the heady, activist, grant-funded years of 1974-1980, the CRS Co-op became one of the most successful co-ops in BC and was committed to co-operation and worker ownership. While the decade of the seventies is remembered for its new wave of co-ops--usually organized by a "free-flowing" collection of women and men in their twenties--CRS was unique in its success. Among its many accolades, it created the Tunnel Canary cannery, the Queenright Co-operative Beekeepers, Vancouver's popular Uprising Breads Bakery and a food wholesaler, which later became Horizon Distributors. The economic, political and social skyline of Vancouver was changing. For some, the co-op movement was about crushing capitalism; for others it was simply about buying cheap, wholesome food from people they trusted, and living in communal camaraderie. No matter the pursuit, co-operation was the answer.

Chenille or Silk is a startling first collection of confessional poetry examining the slippery relations of desire, class, embodiment and trauma. Emma McKenna's writing traverses the bounds and the wounds of a family marked by poverty and intergenerational trauma. The collection asserts the primacy of intimacy and sexuality to subjectivity, as the poems move through the struggle to find identity, love and belonging in an urban queer community's ever-shifting economy of desire. Striking, brave, and at times uncomfortable, Chenille or Silk captures the ambivalence--and the hope--of possibility.

First-of-its-kind, very long-awaited, and bursting with rich storytelling, Swelling with Pride compiles the successes and setbacks of Canadian, queer parenthood, past and present. Editor and proud queer mom Sara Graefe has assembled more than twenty-five creative non-fiction LGBTQ2 authors from across North America, both well-known and up-and-coming, including Andrea Bennett, Marusya Bociurkiw, Jane Byers, Susan G. Cole, Caitlin Crawshaw, Rachel Epstein, Terrie Hamazaki, Nicola Harwood, Natalie Meisner and many more. Together, their candid, moving, thought-provoking stories celebrate what it is to be queer and give voice to both the challenges and joys of building a LGBTQ2 family in a predominantly straight, cis-gendered world.

How She Read is a collection of genre-blurring poems about the representation of Black women, their hearts, minds and bodies, across the Canadian cultural imagination. Using genre-bending dialogue poems and ekphrasis, Gibson reveals the dehumanizing effects of mystifying and simplifying images of Blackness. Undoing the North Star freedom myth, Harriet Tubman and Viola Desmond shed light on the effects of erasure in the time of reconciliation and the dangers of squeezing the past into a Canada History Minute or a single postage stamp. Thoughtful, sassy, reflective and irreverent, How She Read leaves a Black mark on the landscape as it illustrates a writer's journey from passive receiver of racist ideology to active cultural critic in the process of decolonizing her mind.

Award-winning poet, Marion Quednau, finds the rusty part of life's silver linings in this new and striking collection of prose poetry. Marion Quednau's collection Paradise, Later Years plays with the language of juxtaposition, nothing is straight on; if there's quiet beauty by the sea, there's a passing warship. Quednau's lyricism, whether of river or lover, bears witness to relationships transformed by the tension--and surprise--of setting one thing against another. The verse is often irreverent, the humour touching on the pain of recognition, making us shift our boundaries. This book is a brave road trip where no one comes out with the same skin of escape, or want, but rather with new forms of redemption.

Told with subtlety, humour, and heart, this delightful memoir marries adversity, the passage of time, and what it feels like to have a friend throughout it all. A Bright and Steady Flame gives insight into how deep and powerful a friendship can be. Armstrong's new book speaks to our compelling human need and ability to build long-lasting community. This is a love story that celebrates, for all people, the solace that true friendship can provide.

A remarkable, amusing and inspiring tour of what, where, and when to eat BC's fruits and vegetables, complete with photos, recipes and trivia. Take a delightful journey through BC's extraordinary bounty and explore the secrets of locally grown fruits and vegetables. In Jane Reid's new book, Freshly Picked, foodies, locavores and gardeners will discover fascinating information about the plentiful harvests that BC farmers produce every year. In this beautiful colour edition, Reid shares valuable tips on where and when to find the freshest fruits and veggies, plus storage hints and simple recipes that bring out the full flavour of BC's offerings one fruit and vegetable at a time. With her vast collection of historical tidbits Reid shares the surprising facts about the sex life of corn, the checkered reputation of garlic, how beans saved mankind, and more. A committed locavore, Reid passes on stories of local farming, the traditions of preserving foods, and the benefits of eating locally grown fruits and vegetables. Freshly Picked: A Locavore's Love Affair with BC's Bounty is an essential read for any local food lover. Season by season, Reid offers stories, memories, and tales of love and affection for the best of what BC has to offer.