Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill
For 17 years Canadian writer Charlotte Gill worked deep in the Canadian bush, planting seedlings in clear cuts from Timmins to Tofino. Her award-winning first non-fiction book, Eating Dirt: Deep Forest, Big Timber and Life with the Tree-planting Tribe, journeys through Canada’s vast northern landscapes and intimately examines our national dependence on the resource economy by focusing on the intensely solitary work of the treeplanter. For Gill, being deep in the wild for a long period of time is a complex personal experience ripe with tales both disturbing and beautiful. Gill’s treeplanting memoir was nominated for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize, the Charles Taylor Prize, and two B.C. Book Prizes. It won the 2012 B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. Her previous book, Ladykiller, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and winner of the B.C. Book Prize for fiction. Her work has appeared in Best Canadian Stories, The Journey Prize Stories, and many magazines. Gill teaches creative writing at UBC and lives on BC’s Sunshine Coast.

Into the Abyss by Carol Shaben
A rookie pilot, a prominent politician, a young constable, and a criminal. These were the only survivors of a 1984 plane crash in the remote and frozen wilderness of northern Alberta. As the four fought through the night to stay alive, the dividing lines of power, wealth and status were erased and each man was forced to confront the precious and limited nature of his existence. The survivors forged unlikely friendships and through them found strength and courage to rebuild their lives. Into the Abyss by Carol Shaben is a powerful narrative that combines in-depth reporting with sympathy and grace to explore how a single, tragic event can upset our assumptions and become a catalyst for transformation. Larry Shaben, the author’s father and Canada’s first Muslim Cabinet Minister, was commuting home after a busy week at the Alberta Legislature and was one of the four survivors. Shaben has won two National Magazine Awards – a Gold Medal for Investigative Reporting and a Silver Medal for Politics and Public Interest. A former international trade consultant and CBC writer/broadcaster, Shaben was 22 and living and working as a journalist in the Middle East when the crash occurred.

Book signing to follow the presentation.