Women in BC

In 1945, Alfred Adams, a respected Haida elder and founding president of the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia (NBBC), was dying of cancer. After decades of fighting to increase the rights and recognition of First Nations people, he implored Maisie Hurley to help his people by telling others about their struggle. Hurley took his request to both heart and mind, and with $150 of her own money, started a small newspaper that would become a powerful catalyst for change: The Native Voice.

At that …

In 2007, at the age of sixty, Betsy Warland finds herself single and without a sense of family. On an impulse, she decides to travel to London to celebrate her birthday, where she experiences an odd compulsion to see an exhibit on the invention of military camouflage. Within the first five minutes of her visit, her lifelong feeling of being aberrant reveals its source: she had never learned the art of camouflage.

This marked the beginning of Oscar of Between: A Memoir of Identity and Ideas. Takin …

Compelling and honest life of a stubborn BC rancher living tenaciously in the face of her Multiple Sclerosis condition. The devastating diagnosis of an incurable, debilitating disease does not ordinarily form the starting point of a triumphant story. This, however, is a triumphant story. Heidi Redl was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2004 and immediately chose to fight the disease with the only tools available to her: sheer stubbornness and courage.
Growing up on a pioneer ranch in the rou …

The redefinition of family values as seen from the eyes of a polyamorous, queer Italian Canadian obsessed with food.

This mouthwatering, intimate, and sensual memoir traces Monica Meneghetti's unique life journey through her relationship with food, family and love. As the youngest child of a traditional Italian-Catholic immigrant family, Monica learns the intimacy of the dinner table and the ritual of meals, along with the requirements of conformity both at the table and in life. Monica is thirte …

A coming-of-age novel contrasting a daughter's disappointment in her mother's abandonment with the generational differences around feminist values. Summer 1971. While women demand equality, protests erupt over the Vietnam War, and peace activists march, adolescent Maybe Collins' life in quiet Oak Bay is upended by the appearance of her mother, who disappeared nine years earlier.

And with her return comes another surprise: she's written a best-selling memoir called The Other Mother, about motherho …

An anthology of Canadian immigrant women and their experiences of being caught between the world of their past and the world of their future. In this third anthology in the Canadian women series by Caitlin Press, Canadian immigrant women from a variety of ethnicities and intersecting identities share their diverse and personal stories.

A woman takes on the complex and often baffling nuances of the English language, a Ugandan refugee and her family settle in Canada only to find their father is for …

Ordinary Seaman, Nicola Peffers exposes ongoing harassment from her male colleagues, despite Canadian Forces' "zero-tolerance policy" and chronicles PTSD survival experience. When Ordinary Seaman Nicola Peffers boarded the HMCS Winnipeg in 2009, she was embarking on her first deployment with the Canadian Navy. At twenty-six years old, one of the few women on the boat, and of the top students in her training class, Nicola began her career with a sense of optimism and hope towards seeing the world …

In Big Fit Girl, Louise Green describes how the fitness industry fails to meet the needs of plus-size women and thus prevents them from improving their health and fitness. By telling her own story of how she stopped dieting, got off the couch, and unleashed her inner athlete—as well as showcasing similar stories from other women—Green inspires other plus-size women to do the same.

Green also provides concrete advice, based on the latest research, about how to get started, how to establish a s …