X IS FOR AVIATRIX

Like Leonardo da Vinci centuries before her, Lilian Bland (1878–1971) liked to watch birds soaring in the sky, fascinated by the mechanics of flight. Airplanes were still new when Bland was growing up and mostly flown by men. No one would teach the young woman to fly, so she designed, built and eventually flew her own plane, becoming the first woman in the world to do so. Her achievements are related in Lilian Bland: An Amazing Aviatrix (Heritage $19.95), for ages 12+. Written by

Haley Healey and illustrated by Kimiko Fraser, the story follows Bland’s adventures in England to her adopted home in Quatsino Sound on Vancouver Island, where she homesteaded before returning to England.

9781772034332

“Western civilization is over.” So begins Jan Zwicky’s latest collection of essays, Once upon a Time in the West: Essays on the Politics of Thought and Imagination (MQUP $29.95). In her exploration of the root of global cultural and ecological collapse, Zwicky charts how the Renaissance led to

Délani Valin industrialization, the growth of capitalism and Big Technology. She shows how our thought systems grew to become deeply anthropocentric, which caused value not to be recognized unless it was monetized. In general, we have became oblivious to context and big-picture thinking, all the while rejecting empathy and compassion as distorting influences. Western thought has become blind to critical features of reality, and now the consequences of that blinkered vision are beginning to unfold.

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BY BEVERLY CRAMP

At a one-day writers workshop in Sorrento, BC, in 2002, the late author Jack Whyte dared to imagine something bigger. Why not expand the format? Whyte, who was rumoured to have sold more than a million books of his historical fiction series Dream of Eagles, offered to invite some of his favourite authors for the following year to make something resembling a proper writers festival.

Boom! The Shuswap International Writers Festival was born. Held a year later in the larger city of Salmon Arm, the event will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year and is now called Word on the Lake.

Right from year one, the festival attracted prestigious writers like Gail Anderson-Dargatz, bill bissett and Ann Walsh. And of course, Jack Whyte.

But that first year wasn’t without its glitches despite the enormous amount of work done by early organizers Kay McCracken and Fran Bach. On day one of the festival, McCracken was up at 4 am. While registering participants and volunteers, a call came in from one of the festival’s guests, a literary agent,