Find out more about my memoir No Letter in Your Pocket
I’m pleased to announce that Jane in Plain Sight, a poignant debut novel by a recent client, Texas psychiatrist Olga Tolscik, is now available on Amazon. I copy-edited this engaging book, which reveals how easily and publicly a sex trafficker can target and deceive a vulnerable young woman in New York City. Yet, human trafficking…
Stellar Heiltsuk artist Shawn Hunt has shown his edgy art, including sculpture, paintings, and carvings, around the world. Thanks to a 2017 collaboration with Microsoft Vancouver, his Transformer Mask of a raven reveals the magic that can happen when you combine modern technology with traditional and mythic Heiltsuk forms. Find out more about his boundary-blowing…
STORY AND PHOTOS BY HEATHER CONN Part two in a two-part series Every day, the Lombok Sea Turtle Conservation Project in Indonesia requires hundreds of litres of fresh salt water to clean and refill its open-air tanks. Run by the international nonprofit Green Lion, the program uses sea water drawn via portable pumps and long…
Both Jordan and I started photography with the same camera: an all-manual Pentax K1000. Both of us received this camera as a gift. Many decades later, he’s now shooting thousands of images for the shishalh Nation and has had multiple exhibits on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast, including at the Museum and Archives. Want to find out…
As two-foot waves roll onto the sandy shoreline on quiet Landang Luar Beach in Lombok, Indonesia, I’m one of a dozen westerners huddling close to the water’s edge. It’s just before dusk. We’re not watching a floating clump of tourist surfers or wondering if nearby local fishermen, standing calf-deep in the shallows, will make a…
Poetry. Horror. Humour. Fiction. Nonfiction. Live music . . . It was a treat to join about a dozen local authors, of diverse genres, and musician Rae Armour on Oct. 17 on opening day of the Sunshine Coast Art Crawl. We had a packed house at the Gumboot Cafe in xwesam Roberts Creek, BC. Hosted…
Discover the works of talented shishalh Nation multimedia artist Manuela Salinas throughout ch’atlich (Sechelt) and across British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast. From banners, T-shirt images and graphic designs to a museum mural and aluminum creatures in Coast Salish traditional forms, find out more in the summer 2025 issue of Sunshine Coast Life magazine. Read my profile…
I’m delighted to offer my first SoulCollage(R) workshop since before COVID. This free public session, “Discover the Power of Archetypes: Intro to SoulCollage(R),” will be held on Friday, March 28 in qathet at Powell River Public Library, from 2 to 5 pm. Celebrate yourself through the fun, intuitive process of SoulCollage®, a dynamic process based…
Find out how Tahltan artist and carver Levi (Mala) Purjue is reviving his Indigenous culture, using traditional Northwest Coast forms. Read my profile of this artist-in-residence at the Silver Moon Gallery in Gibsons, BC. My feature and photos appeared in the winter 2024 issue of Sunshine Coast Life magazine.
I was delighted to spend a half-hour yesterday interviewed by Matthew DiBiase, a Pennsylvania-based author, on his podcast The Packaged Tourist Show. When he first contacted me via LinkedIn, I assumed he was someone trying to market tourism packages, which is not my form of travel at all. But no, he explained that he likes…
If you want to learn more about notable authors who lived on BC’s Sunshine Coast, come to the Tale Trail Experience at Roberts Creek Hall on Nov. 10. I’ll be giving a presentation about M. Wylie Blanchet, the author who wrote the west-coast adventure nonfiction The Curve of Time. It has recently been on BC’s…
CANCELLED DUE TO ATMOSPHERIC RIVER: Due to nearby flooding and road closures, we had to cancel this event. We apologize for any inconvenience. It will be rescheduled in the new year. Watch for a post in 2025 providing new event details. I’ll be part of the Oct. 19 event “From Pain to Power,” a two-author…
Want to hear my stories of solo travel in India, from touring the Taj Mahal under curfew to visiting an exorcism temple? Come to my reading “A Story of Thriving Empowerment” at Powell River Public Library in qathet Powell River, BC. It’s on Thursday, Oct. 3, from 2 to 3 pm. I’ll focus on my…
Had an excellent time at this year’s 3rd Annual Art and Words event, held at the Gibsons Public Market Aug. 22-25. This event, hosted by the Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society, started with the Book Fair, where more than a dozen authors and artists shared their wares on the main floor. Some participants came…
How do you find my Book Fair author table? Look for the sasquatch tablecloth, Bigfoot figures, and tree full of animal hand puppets. I was among about a dozen authors and artists, all members of Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society, who sold and signed books Aug. 16 at Trail Bay Mall in Sechelt, BC….
The following is my final post in a three-part series addressing the sexual assault of Alice Munro’s daughter by her stepfather. Alice Munro’s daughter Andrea Robin Skinner has said that she does not want her public revelations regarding sexual abuse by her stepfather Gerald Fremlin to destroy her mother’s legacy. Instead, she would like her…
Some have called author Alice Munro a “feminist icon.” The devastating revelations about how she stuck by her second husband who sexually abused her daughter Andrea certainly show otherwise. Again, this does not surprise me. I consider myself a feminist and yet even so-called ones, presumably evolved beyond misogynistic values and role rigidity, can reflect…
As the world still reels over the horrifying news that the late Nobel-prize-winning author Alice Munro supported, and remained with, her second husband who sexually abused her daughter, I have decided to weigh in. This is part one of a three-part response. Munro’s behaviour didn’t surprise me. Like my mother, she grew up in the…
Wood carver Derek Georgeson in ch’atlich (Sechelt, BC, Canada) creates stunning cedar masks, poles, and furniture. This summer, he and his cedar-weaver wife Shyanne (“Shy”) Watters will appear on Coastal Carvings, a documentary series on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Find out more about Derek and see his art in my profile of him in…
In the spring 2024 issue of BC BookWorld, reviewer Steve McClure writes of my memoir No Letter in Your Pocket: “Conn’s soul-baring honesty and writing skills compel you to keep reading and keep learning. The arc of her narrative …. is one that anyone with the slightest amount of empathy will be drawn in by…
I will be reading from my memoir No Letter in Your Pocket on March 24 at Mission Point House in Davis Bay, BC. This free public event is part of the monthly writing events hosted by the Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society. I like what BC BookWorld has said about my book: “Above all,…
It was a pleasure to profile activist filmmaker Liz Marshall for the spring 2024 issue of Sunshine Coast Life magazine. As a director, she collaborated with three Indigenous multimedia creators — Kawaya7 Ecko Aleck of the Nlaka’pamux Nation (Lytton, BC), Kwamanchi Alfonso Salinas of the shíshálh Nation and Charlene SanJenko of Splatsin of the Secwépemc…
If you’re looking for a fun kids’ event, come to my author reading of Six Stinky Feet and a Sasquatch on March 9. I’ll be at Village Books and Paper Dreams in Bellingham, WA. at 11 am. There will be lots of audience participation and a Q&A. Books will be available for sale and signing….
It was a delight to be one of five BC authors who read short memoir excerpts Feb. 21, as a Canadian Authors, BC Chapter Zoom event. Topics ranged from poignant reminiscences of a mother and her sudden death to a Lancaster fighter pilot who survived two years of duty in the Second World War. One…
My memoir No Letter in Your Pocket recently appeared in the “New & Notable” book section (winter 2024 issue) of Goucher Magazine in Baltimore, MD. That feels like a birth notice, of sorts, because Goucher College is where I began to birth this book, in their creative nonfiction MFA program. Lynn Satterfield, Goucher’s director of…
It was a delight to interview shíshálh cedar weaver Shyanne (“Shy”) Watters for Sunshine Coast Life magazine. Shy’s unique cedar hats range from a sasquatch version with long black hair to a red-dress-themed one honouring Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women. Shy is perhaps best known for her culturally modified graduation cap whose pattern reflects ocean…
I’m honoured and flattered that Anne Marie Bennett, creator of Massachusetts-based online company KaleidoSoul, has included my memoir No Letter in Your Pocket in her list of Top Ten Nonfiction Books for 2023. I’m in great company, along with Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry and titles like The Soul of Place by Linda Lappin…
I was one of 34 authors at the Writers Fair hosted Nov. 5 by the Port Moody Public Library in Port Moody, BC. It was great to share a table with one of my writing students, Doug Matthews, and to meet new authors and readers plus writing students past and present. Former student Erik D’Souza…
“Sexual violence is still, to a certain degree, a hidden issue for the average woman,” I told Meggie Royer, editor of the U.S. publication Persephone’s Daughters, during a recent interview. “The #MeToo Movement has been predominantly embodied by very privileged white women. I think it’s wrong that it was a Black woman who came out…
It was a delight to discuss my memoir, the #MeToo Movement, toxic masculinity, forgiveness, and more with Meggie Royer, editor of the feminist publication Persephone’s Daughters. Meggie asked me if I felt comfortable using the term “toxic masculinity” and I said yes. Since then, I’ve learned that it can alienate some men. To me, it…