Sisters of Grass - Softcover

Kishkan, Theresa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0864922884 ISBN 13: 9780864922885

Publisher: Goose Lane Editions, 2000

Synopsis

In her vibrant first novel, Sisters of Grass, Theresa Kishkan weaves a tapestry of the senses through the touchstones of a young woman's life. Anna is preparing an exhibit of textiles reflecting life in central British Columbia a century ago. In a forgotten corner of a museum, she discovers a dusty cardboard box containing the century-old personal effects of a Nicola valley woman. Fascinated by the artifacts, she reconstructs the story of their owner, Margaret Stuart. Margaret, the daughter of a Native mother and a Scottish-American father, she tries to fit into both worlds. She's taught photography by a visiting Columbia University anthropology student that she falls in love with.

With strong, poetic language, Kishkan makes the past reverberate through the present in a richly patterned work celebrating the complexities and joys of life and the sustaining connections of family.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Letters, photographs, a program from a concert by Madame Albani, a buckskin jacket, clippings about the Bill Miner gang -- mementos found by a museum curator organizing a display about central British Columbia a century ago. Infused with the spirit clinging to these personal treasures, Anna reconstructs the life of their owner, Margaret Stuart.

On the cusp of womanhood, Margaret is drawn by opposites: the Nicola Valley ranchland, the horses, and her native grandmother's traditions on one side, the luxuries sent by her American relatives an the new art of photography on the other. Anna's and Margaret's lives entwine, the past reverberates through the present, and their shared rituals and turning points create a universal pattern of beauty.

About the Author

Theresa Kishkan came to national attention in 2000, with her first full-length novel, Sisters of Grass. A true "writer's writer," she has been steadfastly championed by her peers as a writer against whom others measure their own work, and she has fostered the careers of many other writers while refining her own craft. A popular reader in British Columbia, Washington, and other parts of western Canada and the US, she is an enthusiastic organizer of and participant in regional literary events, and she has twice won Province of British Columbia Cultural Services awards. Kishkan's poetry and essays have appeared in periodicals including Brick, Canadian Forum, the Fiddlehead, the Malahat Review, Matrix, the Vancouver Sun, and Manoa (Hawaii) and in five book-length collections including the highly praised Black Cup and Morning Glory, which won the 1992 bp Nichol Chapbook Prize. She has also published a collection of essays on place and history, entitled Red Laredo Boots (New Star, 1996), which Susan Musgrave selected as one of her favourite books of the decade in BC Bookworld. Inishbream is based on a year the author spent on such an island in the 1970s. Today, she lives on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia with her husband, the poet John Pass.

About this edition

• Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0864922884
• ISBN 13: 9780864922885
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 260