Description

In this bracing collection of fantastical fictions, Heather Bourbeau shows us a revolution launched by a slice of cake; an empath trained to avenge the genocidal crimes of her ancestors­; a balloon that can buoy a wounded soul into a new life of liberation; a butcher whose cleaver can almost, but not quite, repair the damage that it has wrought …

“In highlands cold and thick with the echo of fir and cedar, she learned to hone her empathy, to let go of thought, to feel only the emotions of others. She mastered how to channel that pain into action. She trained in traditional fighting techniques and herbs. She ran through the mountains until she could follow a deer soundlessly …”

Heather Bourbeau’s award-winning poetry and fiction have appeared in The Irish Times, The Kenyon Review, Meridian, and The Stockholm Review of Literature. Her writings are part of the Special Collections at the James Joyce Library, University College Dublin, and have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. She has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia. Her latest poetry collection, Monarch (Cornerstone Press, 2023) examines overlooked histories from the US West where she was raised.