Sarah de Leeuw will bring a bold new voice to the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre in on Tuesday, Oct. 22.
She has just won the Dorothy Livesay Prize at the B.C. Book Awards for her Geographies of a Lover, a "boldly erotic long prose poem that binds landscape and desire."
She has followed a fascinating career path. A very West Coast girl, she grew up in Duncan and on Haida Gwaii, and has worked as a tugboat driver and camp cook, as well as in teaching and journalism.
She holds not only a BFA in creative writing, but also a doctorate in Cultural Historical Geography, studying relationships between people and place, especially between the non-indigenous and indigenous peoples of the north.
Now a member of the Faculty of Medicine at UNBC, she specializes in the delivery of health services to the aboriginal people, and her earlier books reflect her specialization: Unmarked: Landscapes Along Highway 16, and Front Lines: Portraits of Caregivers in Northern British Columbia.
In a highly creative way, deLeeuw's first book of poetry, Geographies . . ., reflects those same interests. It has been described as an "eco-erotic text," in which primitive energies of landscape and of human sexuality converge in vividly realized scenes.
She will read starting at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night. The Sunshine Coast Arts Council is helping to sponsor the reading. Admission is by donation.
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