This week I
am at the Kingston Writer’s Festival, interviewing three Young Adult authors
for a panel entitled Dangerous Acts: every act has a consequence. The festival
was correct to label the panel dangerous. In each of the three novels the
characters take on courageous acts, some borne out of necessity and others out
of misguided or adolescent angst. I’m looking forward to a stimulating and
engaging conversations with three amazing authors: Deborah Ellis, Maggie
Devries and Nancy Lee. There are things I want to ask each of them about their
books, their writing and about the dangerous lives of girls and women.
Deborah Ellis is
an internationally-acclaimed, award-winning author, feminist and peace
activist. Her many books explore themes of social justice and courage, such as her
Breadwinner series, which details the lives of Afghan girls and women. She has
also written numerous nonfiction books of interviews with Iraqi, Israeli and
Palestinian children. More recently she has written interviews with Indigenous
children throughout the US and Canada.
Ellis’ most recent book is
Moon at Nine, the story of a teenage
girl, Farrin, who falls in love with another girl during the 1980’s in Tehran. The
Shaw has been overthrown and the country is run by a deeply religious
government, where revolutionary guards monitor every aspect of life. When Farrin meets Sadira, a new girl at her
school their friendship quickly becomes a romance. It is against the law to be
gay in Iran and the punishment is death.
This novel had me griped
all the way through especially since it was based on real life events.
Nancy Lee says she is not the kind of writers
who worries about keeping her characters safe. This is true. Instead she sends
her characters out into the wilds to see how they fare.
Lee’s first
book, the collection of short stories, Dead
Girls, was a darkly carnal collection that dealt with the complexities and
sadness of desire. It was named a best book of 2002 by The Vancouver Sun, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail and others.
Nancy Lee’s
latest book, The Age, tells the story
of Gerry Cross, a teenage misft, who is estranged from her father, at odds with
her mother and adrift in the teenagehood of 1984. Gerry’s anxiety about the threat of nuclear
annihilation leads her to be involved with a group of activists planning to
detonate a bomb at a downtown peace rally.
Lee is a master writer,
and her descriptions had me immersed in the eighties.
Maggie de Vries is the author of ten award-winning
books for children and teens, and the memoir for adults Missing Sarah: A memoir of loss. This book is about de Vries’ adopted sister Sarah who disappeared
from the streets of downtown Vancouver and whose DNA was found on serial killer
Robert Picton’s farm. We do not know the names of almost any of the sex-workers
who were victims of Picton, but in this memoir, de Vries introduces us to her
charismatic sister Sarah, giving her a voice, and a name. Missing Sarah was a Governor General’s award nominee and won the
Vancouver book Award, among others.
In her new YA
novel, Rabbit Ears, de Vries imagines
an alternative fate for her sister Sarah. Devries says, “I wanted to tell a
story about a girl that went through what my sister went through, but
survived.” Told from the point of view of two sisters, Beth and Kaya, the two
girls struggle as Kaya begins hanging out in the notoriously dangerous streets
of Vancouver’s East Side, and turns to prostitution and drug use.
I read Rabbit Ears with fear and trepidation,
but despite its strong subject matter, de Vries writes so beautifully that I thoroughly
enjoyed the book.