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For immediate release Joan Skogan to read from Mary of Canada: The Virgin Mary in Canadian Culture, Spirituality, History, and Geography at The Banff Centre
West Coast author Joan Skogan will attend an upcoming book launch in Banff to celebrate her new work, Mary of Canada, a compelling exploration of the Virgin Mary in Canada. The 328-page book with 70 duotone illustrations was recently released by the Banff Centre Press.
A launch will be held Saturday, April 3, at 7:00 p.m. in the Bentley Chamber Music Studio at The Banff Centre. Everyone is welcome and wine will be served.
Canada’s culture is distinguished by the Virgin Mary’s astonishingly frequent presence — her roots in Canadian soil are deep. In the book, rich references delve into literature, history, art, and geography. In locating Mary in this country, Skogan observes the ways she transforms to answer Canadian needs. From Virgin Mary sightings on frosted windows to thrift shop icons, from the Our Lady Peace rock band to traditional prayer, Mary lives in Canada.
Dense, poetic, and lovingly hewn, Skogan’s work, based on years of extensive research, brings the Virgin Mary to Canadian shores. Illustrations, varying from modern art to pop-culture presentations, offer visual context.
Skogan, who currently lives in Nanaimo, was born on the West Coast and holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia. She has written features for CBC Radio, Saturday Night, Border Crossings, and Georgia Straight. She has also published short stories and prose poems in Grain, Prairie Fire, West Coast Review, and other magazines.
Her first novel, Moving Water, was published in 1998. Other works include Voyages: At Sea with Strangers (1992) and Skeena: A River Remembered(1983). Her books for children are The Princess & the Sea Bear and other Tsimshian Stories (1991), Grey Cat at Sea (1991), and The Good Companion (1998). Earlier this year she won Grain magazine’s Long Grain of Truth Prize for “Chimney Coulee Psalm.”
In praise of Mary of Canada: The Virgin Mary in Canadian Culture, Spirituality, History, and Geography:
“Mary of Canada is….full of tender acts of mercy, gleanings from a millennium of history and brilliant flashes of insight, which taken together add up to sacred meaning.”
“Mary of Canada is an unusual, very personal book….And as vivid as her prose are images in which Canada’s people claim Mary as their own.”
Downloadable images from Mary of Canada are available.
Jennifer Nault
Mary of Canada book launch details: Media Contact
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