All We Knew But Couldn't Say

By Joanne Vannicola

Finalist for the 2020 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Nonfiction

Joanne Vannicola grew up in a violent home with a physically abusive father and a mother who had no sexual boundaries.

After being pressured to leave home at fourteen, and after fifteen years of estrangement, Joanne ... Read more

Among Silent Echoes

By Phyllis Dyson

Twenty-five years after her mother's brutal death made the headlines, Phyllis Dyson felt compelled to unearth the truth about her mother's illness. By chronicling the events of her childhood, uncovering family secrets and betrayals and gaining access to government documents, ... Read more

Borderline Shine

By Connie Greshner
Foreword by Theresa Therriault

A therapist's story of complex trauma and her remarkable journey to recovery.

When Connie Greshner was eight years old, her father walked into a bar in Ponoka, Alberta, and shot her mother. So began a young life defined by trauma. From Catholic boarding school in Kansas to the ... Read more

Conflict Is Not Abuse

By Sarah Schulman

Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Non-Fiction winner

From intimate relationships to global politics, Sarah Schulman observes a continuum: that inflated accusations of harm are used to avoid accountability. Illuminating the difference between Conflict and Abuse, Schulman directly addresses ... Read more

First Gear

By Lorrie Jorgensen

First Gear: A Motorcycle Memoir is a compelling story of childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse that unrolls as the author, at age 50 and living with Multiple Sclerosis, rides her 2009 Harley-Davidson — named Thelma D. — from Ottawa to Winnipeg and back with a stop ... Read more

Insurgent Love

By Ardath Whynacht

Domestic homicide is violence that strikes within our most intimate relations. The most common strategy for addressing this kind of transgression relies on policing and prisons. But through examining commonly accepted typologies of high-risk intimate partner violence, Ardath ... Read more

No Way to Run

By Holly Crichton

On September 3, 2010, the RCMP in Grande Prairie, Alberta, received a 911 call from Mat Crichton about a shooting on a local farm. Seconds later, miles from home, Holly Crichton got a shocking call from her son. "I just shot Dad," Mat told her. The violent end to a violent situation ... Read more

No White Picket Fence

By Robin Whittaker & Sue Mckenzie-Mohr

A powerful verbatim play about young women’s resilience through foster care, drawn from in-depth interviews. No White Picket Fence stems from a research project conducted by social work professor Sue McKenzie-Mohr with ten individuals who, as girls, grew up in the foster-care ... Read more

Persephone's Children

By Rowan McCandless

Finalist for 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction • Co-Winner of 2022 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book

After years of secrecy and silence, Rowan McCandless leaves an abusive relationship and rediscovers her voice and identity through writing. ... Read more

The Castleton Massacre

By Sharon Anne Cook & Margaret Carson

A GLOBE AND MAIL TOP 100 BEST BOOKS OF 2022
A former United Church minister massacres his family. What led to this act of femicide, and why were his victims forgotten?

On May 2, 1963, Robert Killins, a former United Church minister, slaughtered every woman in his family but one. ... Read more