In the spring, The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope reached Montreal with my reading at the well-loved ARGO Bookshop. The response of those present was heartening. People are hungry for hope and knowledge. How satisfying and motivating it was to nourish that hope for the land and our relationship with it!

This has been a productive year with new writing and my bilingual poetry being published in two French publications here in Quebec: the well-respected Montreal literary journal Les Écrits #146, with a piece entitled « Something », in hommage to the wonderful sculptor Don Darby, and in the impressive anthology of 4 generations of women poets in Quebec, Femmes rapaillées.

Of course, both publications led to performances with the fellow writers involved, at the Maison de la littérature in Quebec City, and at the Salon du livre international de Québec. (Quebec’s International Book Fair). The jazz musician Michel Côté regaled us, the femmes rapaillées, and the public, with his amazing improvisations for each poem.

The International Quebec P.E.N. committee recently established a P.E.N. Women Writers’ Committee in Quebec City and Montreal. As a member of the Quebec committee this year, I was invited to give a writing workshop for First Nations and immigrant women at La Maison de la literature. It was a thoroughly enjoyable privilege to support their process and impressive to see their fine work evolve.

Part of our work on the P.E.N. committee involved witnessing different women around the world who are detained, murdered or constantly harassed for their speaking out against injustice in their countries. For our two events witnessing them, again at the Maison de la literature and the Salon du livre, I supported Dina Meza in Honduras. The Wyandot singer Andrée Lévesque-Sioui accompanied us in both events with her finely wrought musical witness.

And last but not least, the pleasure of translating (into English) Valerie Forgue’s poems for her participation in Germany’s Roedermark’s World-Poetry Festival.