Join us for a conversation with Margaret Macpherson, author, teacher of writing, and community facilitator. Margaret's most recent publication, Tracking the Caribou Queen: Memoir of a Settler Girlhood (2022, NeWest Press), is an honest and challenging account about her formative years in Yellowknife in the ’60s and ’70s. In her book, Margaret takes a sustained look at her own white privilege, and how her childhood was shaped by the colonialism and systemic racism that continues today.
With opportunity for audience participation, Margaret will engage in moderated conversation with Sarah Kerr, local Community Organizer and writer, about her work, her inspiration, and will take questions from those attending. We look forward to welcoming you to this event.
About Tracking the Caribou Queen: Memoir of a Settler Girlhood, Margaret says— "I wrote this book hoping white Canadian wrestling with their place in the reconciliation process might consider the nature of institutional racism and realize how none are exempt. Racism doesn't have to be overt. It exists in the structures established by a colonial system. The beginning of healing is recognising culpability and taking responsibility for same. My story is only my story, no one else's, but my hope is that it would act as a mirror for readers so others recognize themselves in the unwitting child narrator raised within the system."
Admission: Pay-what-you-can via Tickets Please
About the author:
Margaret Macpherson is from Yellowknife, NWT (Denendeh). Her latest book, Tracking the Caribou Queen: Memoir of a Settler Girlhood (2022, NeWest Press) was recently nominated for the Trade Non-fiction Book of the Year by the Alberta Book Publishing Association. It also won a Gold Independent Publishing Award (IPPY) in 2023.
Margaret has worked as a full-time professional writer, teacher and editorial/educational mentor for the last four decades. With a Master of Fine Arts (Creative Writing) from UBC, Margaret has written and published eight works of fiction and non-fiction, including biography, Nellie McClung: Voice for the Voiceless (XYZ Publishing) which won the Canadian Authors Association (CAA) Exporting Alberta Award. Her collection of short stories Perilous Departures (2004, Signature Editions), and her first novel, Released (2007, Signature Editions) were both shortlisted for Manitoba Book Awards and the Re-Lit Award and her second novel Body Trade (2011, Signature Editions) won the DeBeers Northword Prize.
Margaret is currently preparing a second short story collection for publication from her new home in the Ottawa Valley, where she lives with her husband.
For more on Margaret visit her website www.margaretmacpherson.ca
Presented with funding support from the Municipality of Mississippi Mills and with the community support of Equator Coffee, and in partnership with Mill Street Books.
