Elee Kraljii Gardiner Book Launch: sometimes, forest

Don’t miss Vancouver Poet Laureate, Elee Kraljii Gardiner, in Ottawa to launch her third collection of poetry, sometimes, forest, alongside host and fellow reader Chris Turnbull, and Ottawa poet laureate David O'Meara!

sometimes, forest alternatively rails at and desires a fluid beloved, sometimes forest, sometimes lover, friend, mother, or an absence the speaker yearns for in herself. But the coastal temperate rainforest continues foresting, existing independently of the speaker’s wants or needs, a place of both refuge and harm. Returning daily to the same woods, the speaker notices minute seasonal changes and considers her own internal changes too.

Meanwhile, fires, heat domes, and landslides mirror hormonal heat and biological surges. Considering how networks of lateral support mitigate and challenge hierarchical, individualistic structures, sometimes, forest develops a theory of hylofeminism that attends to a deep, communal connection with nature as a relational way of being with the self and the more-than-human world.

ELEE KRALJII GARDINER is the author of three poetry collections, serpentine loop, Trauma Head and, most recently, sometimes, forest from Talonbooks, as well as editor of two anthologies (V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and Against Death: 35 Essays on Living). A frequent collaborator, she works across disciplines and administers the Warland Award for hybrid literature. She also directs Vancouver Manuscript Intensive and is the seventh poet laureate of Vancouver. 

Michael Decter Book Launch

Join former Ontario Deputy Minister of Health Michael Decter to launch his book, The Canadian Health Care Guerilla Handbook: How to Fight For What You Need!

Unlike traditional policy books, The Canadian Health Care Guerrilla Handbook focuses on what individuals can actually do when faced with delays, denials, or barriers in the health care system. Packed with real-world examples and practical tools, it serves as a survival manual for Canadians navigating wait lists, treatment approvals, and access to specialists.

MICHAEL DECTER is a former Ontario Deputy Minister of Health and author of numerous books on health policy, investment, and politics. Mike McCarthy is a nationally recognized patient advocate who played a key role in securing justice for victims of the tainted blood scandal and has spent decades fighting for improved access to treatment in Canada.

 

 

Amanda Sung Book Signing

Join Amanda Sung for a book signing from How to Break a Girl!

Think Sex and the City—if Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha were Asian Canadian immigrants navigating not just love and career, but the complexities of intergenerational baggage, cultural curveballs, and all the gendered nonsense the world throws at them. This isn't a sob story—it's the sisterhood and sass you love, with a sharper edge and a deeper heart.

AMANDA SUNG is a Taiwanese-Canadian writer who crafts her stories from the inside out—How to Break a Girl, drawn from the scars and triumphs of her own journey as a satellite child growing up in Canada without parents. Amanda holds a Bachelor’s in Communication from Simon Fraser University and a Master of Journalism from the University of British Columbia. How to Break a Girl evolved from her graduate thesis—originally conceived as a memoir, now reimagined as fiction.