Enlarge Image
To embed a link to this book on your own website, please copy the code below.
Locations of Grief
Edited by Catherine Owen
Contributions by Alice Major, Katherine Bitney, Alice Burdick, Marilyn Dumont, Ben Gallagher, Catherine Greenwood, Jane Eaton Hamilton, Richard Harrison, David Haskins, Steven Heighton, Theresa Kishkan, Christine Lowther, Canisia Lubrin, James Picard, Nikki Reimer, Waubgeshig Rice, Lisa Richter, Lynn Tait, Sharon Thesen, Onjana Yawnghwe, Daniel Zomparelli
By Jenna Butler, and Catherine Graham
Exploring the landscapes of death and grief, this collection takes the reader through a series of essays, drawn together from twenty-four Canadian writers that reach across different ages, ethnicities and gender identities as they share their thoughts, struggles and journeys ... Read more
Overview
Exploring the landscapes of death and grief, this collection takes the reader through a series of essays, drawn together from twenty-four Canadian writers that reach across different ages, ethnicities and gender identities as they share their thoughts, struggles and journeys relating to death. Be it the meditation on the loss of a beloved dog who once solaced a departed parent, the tragic suicide of a stranger or the deep pain of losing a brother, Locations of Grief is defined by its range of essays exploring all the facets of mourning, and how the places in our lives can be irreversibly changed by the lingering presence of death.
Catherine Owen
Catherine Owen lives in New Westminster, BC. She is the author of ten collections of poetry, among them, Designated Mourner (ECW, 2014), Trobairitz (Anvil Press 2012), Seeing Lessons (Wolsak & Wynn 2010) and Frenzy (Anvil Press 2009). Her poems are included in several recent anthologies such as Forcefield: 77 Women Poets of BC (Mothertongue Press, 2013) and This Place a Stranger: Canadian Women Travelling Alone (Caitlin Press, 2014). Stories have appeared in Urban Graffiti, Memwear Magazine, Lit N Image (US) and Toronto Quarterly. Her collection of memoirs and essays is called Catalysts: Confrontations with the Muse (W & W, 2012). Frenzy won the Alberta Book Prize and other collections have been nominated for the BC Book Prize, ReLit, the CBC Prize, and the George Ryga Award. In 2015, Wolsak & Wynn published her compendium on the practices of writing called The Other 23 and a Half Hours or Everything You Wanted to Know That Your MFA Didn’t Teach You. She works in TV, plays metal bass and blogs at Marrow Reviews.
Alice Major
Alice Major has published eleven books of poetry and a prize-winning collection of essays, Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science. Recent awards include the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award and an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta. She served as Edmonton’s first poet laureate, a city where she continues to live.
Katherine Bitney
Katherine Bitney is the author of four books of poetry, a collection of essays on nature and the text for a choral piece. A fifth collection of poems is under construction. She has worked as editor, mentor, writing instructor and arts juror for over three decades. She lives, gardens and writes in Winnipeg.
Alice Burdick
Alice Burdick is the author of four full-length poetry collections, Simple Master, Flutter, Holler and Book of Short Sentences. Deportment, a book of selected poems, came out in 2018 from Wilfrid Laurier University Press. She has been a judge for various awards, including the bpNichol Chapbook Award and the Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize. She co-owns an independent bookstore in Lunenburg called Lexicon Books and now lives in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia.
Jenna Butler
Jenna Butler is the author of three critically acclaimed books of poetry, Seldom Seen Road, Wells and Aphelion; an award-winning collection of ecological essays, A Profession of Hope: Farming on the Edge the of Grizzly Trail ; and a poetic travelogue, Magnetic North: Sea Voyage to Svalbard.
Butler's research into endangered environments has taken her from America's Deep South to Ireland's Ring of Kerry, and from volcanic Tenerife to the Arctic Circle onboard an ice-class masted sailing vessel, exploring the ways in which we impact the landscapes we call home. A professor of creative writing and environmental writing at Red Deer College, she lives with seven resident moose and a den of coyotes on an off-grid organic farm in Alberta's North Country.
Marilyn Dumont
Marilyn Dumont is of Cree/Métis ancestry. Poet, writer and professor, she teaches with the Faculty of Native Studies and the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. Her four collections of poetry have all won either provincial or national poetry awards: A Really Good Brown Girl (1996), green girl dreams Mountains (2001), that tongued belonging (2007) and The Pemmican Eaters (2015). She was awarded the 2018 Lifetime Membership from the League of Canadian Poets for her contributions to poetry in Canada, and in 2019 was awarded the Alberta Lieutenant Governor’s Distinguished Artist Award. She lives in Edmonton, AB.
Ben Gallagher
Ben Gallagher is a poet, essayist and new father, currently in the middle of a PhD at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, researching non-linear pedagogy and poetic practices in community poetry workshops. Recent poems can be found in untethered, Sewer Lid, The Puritan, (parenthetical) and Arc. He lives in Lunenburg, NS.
Catherine Graham
Catherine Graham is a poet, novelist and creative writing instructor. She is the author of six acclaimed poetry collections, including The Celery Forest, a CBC Best Book of the Year and finalist for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and CAA Poetry Award and her debut novel, Quarry, was a finalist for the Sarton Women’s Book Award for Contemporary Fiction and Fred Kerner Book Award and won the Miramichi Reader’s “The Very Best!” Book Award and an Independent Publisher Book Awards’ gold medal for Fiction. She holds an MA in creative writing from Lancaster University (UK). Her poems have been translated into Greek, Serbo-Croatian, Bangla, Chinese and Spanish and have appeared in The Malahat Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Glasgow Review of Books, Exile Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, Poetry Daily, Poetry Ireland, Gutter Magazine and have been broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster, anthologized in The White Page / An Bhileag Bhan: Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets and The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol IV & V. A finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize, she has won the Arc Award of Awesomeness and her poems have been nominated for the 2020 National Magazine Award by Exile Magazine. She teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto where she won an Excellence in Teaching Award. A previous winner of the Toronto International Festival of Authors’ Poetry NOW, she leads their monthly book club and is also an interviewer for By the Lake Book Club.
Catherine Greenwood
Catherine Greenwood has lived and worked in British Columbia, New Brunswick, China and southeast England. Previous job titles include publications analyst, foreign expert, financial aid adjudicator and pet sitter. She has published two collections of poetry, The Pearl King and Other Poems and The Lost Letters. Her writing has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, and has been recognized with several prizes, including a National Magazine Gold Award. She now lives in South Yorkshire where, as a PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield, she is pursuing an interest in Scottish Gothic poetry.
Jane Eaton Hamilton
Jane Eaton Hamilton is the author of seven books of fiction and poetry. Her book July Nights was shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes and her book Hunger was shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Award. Body Rain, her first book of poetry, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award, and her chapbook, Going Santa Fe, won the League of Canadian Poets Poetry Chapbook Award. A pseudonymous memoir was on the Guardian's Best of the Year list and was a Sunday Times bestseller. She has been included in the Journey Prize Anthology and Best Canadian Short Stories, and has been cited in Best American Short Stories. She has won many prizes for her short fiction, including, twice, the Prism International short fiction contest, and first prize in the CBC Literary Awards. She has been published in the New York Times, Seventeen magazine, Salon, Numero Cinq, Macleans, the Globe and Mail, the Missouri Review, the Alaska Quarterly Review and many other places. She has been a recipient of arts awards from the BC Arts Council and the Canada Council. Jane is also a photographer and visual artist and was a litigant in Canada's same-sex marriage case. She lives in Vancouver, BC.
Richard Harrison
Richard Harrison is the author of seven books of poetry including On Not Losing My Father's Ashes in the Flood, which won the Governor General's Award for English-language Poetry and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry in Alberta. 25: Hockey Poems Selected and New celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Hero of the Play, the first book of poetry to be launched at the Hockey Hall of Fame. Richard's poems have been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic, and his Governor General's Award–winning volume was translated into Italian. He has read widely in Canada and the United States, and his work has been featured on many TV and radio broadcasts including Adrienne Clarkson Presents and Peter Gzowski's Morningside. His essays, as well as writing on his work, have appeared in several academic publications, the Globe and Mail, the Manchester Guardian and the New York Times. In 1995, Richard was the Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Calgary; he has since made Calgary his home and teaches English and Creative Writing at Mount Royal University.
David Haskins
David Haskins wanted to write ever since Enid Blyton sent him a handwritten postcard when he was seven. He also wanted to become a veterinary surgeon. He settled for mentorships under CanLit’s A-listers Joe Rosenblatt, Austin Clarke, Matt Cohen, John Herbert, P.K. Page and others, and a career teaching English to high schoolers. His poetry books, Reclamation (Borealis, 1980) and Blood Rises (Guernica, 2020), and his literary memoir This House Is Condemned (Wolsak and Wynn, 2013) top a long list of published works that have won first place awards from the CBC, the Ontario Poetry Society, the Canadian Authors Association, gritLIT and Arts Hamilton. He continues to live in the family home in Grimsby, Ontario.
Steven Heighton
Steven Heighton (1961–2022) was the author of nineteen previous books, including the Writers' Trust Hilary Weston Prize finalist Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos and The Waking Comes Late, winner of the Governor General's Award for poetry.
Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan lives on the Sechelt Peninsula in British Columbia with her husband, John Pass. She has published 14 books, most recently Euclid's Orchard, a collection of essays about family history, botany, mathematics, and love (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2017). She has been nominated for a number of awards, including the Pushcart Prize, the Relit Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, the Hubert Evans Prize for Non-Fiction, and won the 2010 Edna Staebler Personal Essay Prize awarded by The New Quarterly. She runs a small press devoted to the literary novella, Fish Gotta Swim Editions, with her friend Anik See.
Christine Lowther
Christine Lowther has been a lifelong activist and a resident of Clayoquot Sound since 1992. She is the author of three books of poetry, New Power (Broken Jaw Press, 1999), My Nature (Leaf Press, 2010), and Half-Blood Poems (Zossima Press, 2011). Her memoir, Born Out of This (Caitlin Press, 2014), was a finalist for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize at the 2015 BC Book Prizes. Christine co-edited two collections of essays, Writing the West Coast: In Love with Place (Ronsdale Press, 2008) and Living Artfully: Reflections from the Far West Coast (The Key Publishing House, 2012). Recipient of the inaugural Rainy Coast Arts Award for Significant Accomplishment in 2014, Chris served as Tofino Poet Laureate 2020-2022.
Canisia Lubrin
Canisia Lubrin is a writer, editor, critic and teacher from St. Lucia, published and anthologized internationally with translations of her work into Spanish, Italian and forthcoming in French and German. Her poetry debut Voodoo Hypothesis (Buckrider Books, 2017) was named a CBC Best Book and garnered multiple award nominations. The Dyzgraphxst (M&S, 2020) is her sophomore book of poetry. She holds an MFA from the University of Guelph and lives in Ontario.
James Picard
James Picard has exhibited extensively in close to two hundred art exhibitions throughout North America and Europe, and next to world-renowned art legends such as Picasso, Matisse, Miró, and Warhol. He has also taught at several universities and has released three books on his art. He was the first artist to exhibit his paintings at the historical Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco, part of his The Dark & The Wounded painting series and world art tour, which he filmed and turned into a documentary film that won awards across the North American film festival circuit in 2017/18, culminating in a screening in May 2018 at the 71st Cannes International Film Festival in France. He currently resides in California.
Nikki Reimer
Nikki Reimer writes poetry, non-fiction, and criticism, organizes in the community, yells on the internet, and makes digital art. Her first book of poetry, [sic] (Frontenac House, 2010), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She has published three chapbooks: that stays news (Nomados Press, 2011), haute action material (Heavy Industries, 2011), and fist things first (Wrinkle Press, 2009). Her work has also been shortlisted for the Lit POP Award and the PRISM International Creative Non-Fiction Contest. She is a member of the Writer’s Guild of Alberta and a founding co-director of the Chris Reimer Legacy Fund Society.
Waubgeshig Rice
Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist from Wasauksing First Nation on Georgian Bay. He has written three fiction titles, and his short stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies. His most recent novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was published in 2018 and became a national bestseller. He graduated from Ryerson University’s journalism program in 2002, and spent the bulk of his journalism career at CBC, most recently as host of Up North, the afternoon radio program for northern Ontario. He lives in Sudbury with his wife and two sons. Legacy is his debut novel.
Lisa Richter
Lisa Richter is the author of a book of poetry, Closer to Where We Began (Tightrope Books, 2017). Her work has previously appeared in The New Quarterly, CV2, The Puritan, The Malahat Review, Literary Review of Canada and the anthology Jack Layton: Art in Action (Quattro Books, 2013). Her next collection of poems, Nautilus and Bone, is forthcoming with Frontenac House in fall 2020. She lives in Toronto.
Lynn Tait
Lynn Tait is a Toronto-born poet/photographer. Her poems have appeared in various literary journals including Vallum, FreeFall, and in over one hundred anthologies. She’s also published a chapbook and co-authored a book with four other poets. She currently resides in Sarnia, Ontario.
Sharon Thesen
Sharon Thesen has been living, working, teaching and writing in British Columbia, from Kamloops to Prince George to Vancouver (for a long while), and more recently in the Okanagan Valley. A poet, editor and critic, she is Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing at UBC’s Okanagan campus.
Onjana Yawnghwe
Onjana Yawnghwe was born in Thailand but is from the Shan people in Burma (Myanmar). She grew up in Vancouver and received a master's degree in English from UBC. Her poems have been featured in numerous anthologies and journals, including The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011, 4 Poets, CV2, Room magazine and The New Quarterly. Her first poetry book, Fragments, Desire, was published by Oolichan Books in 2017. More about her work can be found at www.onjana.com.
Daniel Zomparelli
Daniel Zomparelli is the Editor-in-Chief of Poetry Is Dead magazine and co-podcaster at Can't Lit. He also co-edits After You, a collaborative poetry project. He is the author of the poetry collections Davie Street Translations and (with Dina Del Bucchia) Rom Com, both published by Talonbooks. His debut story collection Everything Is Awful and You're a Terrible Person was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2017. He lives in Vancouver.
Reader Reviews
Tell us what you think!
Sign Up or Sign In to add your review or comment.
Related Blog Posts
In Review: The Week of June 15th
This week we revealed our picks for our upcoming Summer Book Club, recommended books for Father's Day, reflected on wise words about grief, and more.
Reflections on grief, place, and mourning from the contributors of Locations of Grief
Exploring death and mourning, Locations of Grief (Wolsak and Wynn) collects essays from twenty-four Canadian writers that span different ages, ethnicities, and gender identities about their struggles and journeys relating to death. Below editor Catherine Owen asks some ... Read more
- Dimensions 252 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 x 0.57 in
- Published June 16, 2020
- Publisher Wolsak & Wynn Publishers
- Category Literary Collections
- Keywords Essays , Death , Grief , Bereavement , Canada , Sociology: Death & Dying
Other titles by Catherine Owen
Other titles by Katherine Bitney
Other titles by Alice Burdick
Other titles by Jenna Butler
Other titles by Marilyn Dumont
Other titles by Catherine Graham
Other titles by Catherine Greenwood
Other titles by Jane Eaton Hamilton
Other titles by Richard Harrison
Other titles by David Haskins
Other titles by Steven Heighton
Other titles by Theresa Kishkan
Other titles by Christine Lowther
Other titles by Canisia Lubrin
Other titles by Nikki Reimer
Other titles by Waubgeshig Rice
Other titles by Sharon Thesen
Other titles by Onjana Yawnghwe
Other titles by Daniel Zomparelli
Get the All Lit Up Newsletter!
We'll send you bi-monthly updates to keep you in the loop on the best of our blog, special campaigns and offers, AND news on the latest in literary fiction, nonfiction and poetry from indie publishers across Canada.
You May Also Like
