For the Townsman
After launching their respective books in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, poet Jane Byers and fiction writer Leesa Dean will be visiting the Cranbrook Library on Tuesday, Dec. 13, at 3 p.m. for a reading and book signing.
Byers' poetry collection Acquired Community and Dean's "Waiting for the Cyclone" were both released earlier this fall to rave reviews in publications such as the Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire.
"I'm particularly excited about this stop on the tour," says Dean, who was raised in Cranbrook and graduated from Mount Baker Secondary School in 1999. "There's something nice about returning to the community where you first realized what you wanted to be—a writer—once you've actually achieved your goal."
Dean looks forward to celebrating her book's publication with old friends as well as meeting local writers and literary enthusiasts.
Byers, who lives in Nelson, last toured through the East Kootenay in 2014 with the release of her first poetry collection, "Steeling Effects," for which she won the Richard Carver Emerging Writer Award. Her current collection, "Acquired Community," investigates seminal moments in North American lesbian and gay history and celebrates community resilience.
Dean's short story collection is a celebration of badly behaved women.
"Women are too often cast in literature as inherently good and dependable," the promotional blurb reads — "but this is not the case in the audacious stories of Waiting for the Cyclone."
The book challenges traditional literary archetypes by revealing female characters that are nuanced, contradictory, and boldly unapologetic.
The event at the library is free and open to all community members. Both authors will have copies of their books for sale.