 Hello everybody. Welcome to our North Shore Reads event. My name is Sarah Orlin and I'm a librarian with the North Vancouver District Public Library. I'm joined tonight by my colleagues Kendra Sakamoto and Julie Backer from the West Vancouver Memorial Library. Our North Vancouver City Library colleague CJ Pentland could not be here tonight. We want to thank him for his work on this event. We're quite sure there are people joining us from all across North America and probably across the world. And while we recognize that we are all in different places this evening, we would like to acknowledge that for those of us here on the North Shore of Vancouver, this event is taking place on the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Squamish, Slewa-tooth and Muscly and First Nations. If you are uncertain as to which ancestral territory you live on, we encourage you to visit whose.land to learn more about the traditional lands on which you reside. Giving a territorial acknowledgement like this is a very small part of reconciliation, but it is an important reminder to we as libraries and as individuals that we must continue to take meaningful action towards reconciliation. On September 30th, many of us here on the North Shore showed up to take part in being a wall of support when Slewa-tooth Nation did its 8.5 kilometer pilgrimage from St. Paul's residential school to their home reserve. There are always opportunities for us to find ways to show up, listen, learn and support, and your library is a great place for you to learn about ways to participate in reconciliation action. We have the great honor tonight to have a traditional welcome from Elder Carleen Thomas of Slewa-tooth Nation. Thank you so much for being here, Elder Thomas, and we turn it over to you. So what I said to you in the very teeny tiny bit of my language that I know called Huckmeatnam or Downriver Huckmalum, I said, my respected friends, the feelings I have inside are really good. I feel really good to be with you here tonight. And in our cultural ways, I introduced myself to you with my ancestral name. I carry the name Anzachlot. It doesn't have any meaning, but what's so special about it is that after many generations, my late paternal grandmother was able to recapture that name. She found that name that it was lost for generations. And when I became a young woman, she shared that name with me. Also in our cultural ways, I shared a little bit of my family tree. We do that for a number of reasons, but the most important is that it informs you, the audience, that I know who I am. I know where I come from. And as a grandmother, I carry that responsibility a lot more dearly these days. So my parents are Diana George and the late hereditary chief, Ernie George or Iggy, as his friends called him. Both sets of my grandparents have passed on. My paternal grandparents are the late hereditary chief, John L. George and Lillian or Dolly George, as she was known to her friends. For a real long time, I didn't acknowledge my mother's parents, my maternal grandparents. And I guess as I became closer to becoming a granny myself, I had to pause and reflect on that because both my grannies were such integral pieces, parts of my growing up years, my formative years. And what I came to realize was that I'm a pretty colonized person. You see back in the day when Canada was being built and the colonizers were taking all the Indians and sticking us on reserves and drawing borders on those reserves and sticking labels on those reserves, they separated us. They divided us. In effect, they set us against each other. We were in competition for lands and resources. And so in an act of decolonizing myself and reconciling my relationship with my sister nations, the Musqueam and the Squamish, it's with great honor and respect that I acknowledge my maternal grandfather as Stannis Las Joseph, Stan Joseph from the Squamish Nation. And my grandmother was Caroline, need Thomas, need Joseph, need Trimble. And she comes from the Sanaymoh and Anaymo people and Kinkoleth, Niska people up in the beautiful Nass Valley. And you couldn't see, but I was raising my hands in Coast Salish territories. It's a gesture of welcome. Hi, Sefka, Amitsep Putwilam, thanking you all, welcoming you all to the homelands and waters of the Musqueam, the Squamish, and the Slavic people. And I echo Sarah's sentiments earlier. Please recognize the indigenous peoples from whose lands you're on right now at this current moment. I'm really looking forward to this evening and I will pass it back to you. Sarah, I think take care, everyone. Hey, Owish. Thank you. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you sharing your words with us, your family with us, your journey of reconciliation with yourself. And we really feel honored to be welcomed. I feel it very deeply. It's not just a welcome. It's an active generosity and we really, really appreciate it. And also, we really appreciate you talking about the impact of your elders for yourself and you thinking about yourself as an elder. And I'm sure that theme will be coming up in the conversation as it has shown up in Ivan's book. So welcome again, everyone, to our second annual North Shore Reads. The purpose of North Shore Reads is to connect people across our North Shore communities by the shared experience of reading the same book. The book in this case is Cara by Ivan Coyote. And it seemed like a natural and obvious choice because we as the committee loved how it gives readers a chance to reflect on some of the effects of the pandemic on ourselves and our relationships. But more importantly, how it gives readers a window into the vulnerabilities of others' lives and the grace and compassion we can all choose to have for each other. We also thought it was a total no-brainer to invite back CBC's Sheila Rogers, both because, let's face it, she's amazing, but also because it is no secret that she and Ivan are pals and have a lovely rapport with each other. So without further ado, we welcome Ivan Coyote and Sheila Rogers to do what they do best, to talk and let us in on their thoughts, perspectives, and stories. Welcome, Sheila and Ivan. Sarah, thank you so much. And I also want to say hi-chka-cm to Elder Carleen Thomas. I'm thrilled that she talked about grandparents because I know they're going to come up. Ivan, so happy to see you. I have a sort of intro to the book. Would you like me to kind of do that? Absolutely, Sheila. That would be great. Thank you. Okay. All right. First of all, I would like to acknowledge the territory I'm speaking to you from, which is Laquangen Territory, and the unceded territories of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations. And I'm very grateful to be living where I live and appreciate the welcome. And I also really grieve the time that I didn't think about whose land I was on, and that was a very big part of my life. So I'm grateful to the teachings of Elder Carleen Thomas and also what you said, Sarah, that it's so much more than a land acknowledgement. Well, through books and through years of performances, Ivan, you have formed this deep forged, let's call it forged, a deep connection with your readers, your audience, and then you're a performing artist. It's your lifeblood and it grinds to halt. So what is a performing artist to do? There's a beautiful quote. You referred to yourself as a professional suitcase packer, a world-class map reader, a finely tuned leaving machine. And then you had to become a staying machine. But what you did was to pull out letters and Facebook messages and notes and emails from over your decades of touring and publishing, speaking, delivering amazing stories, and started to answer them. And because you did have the time and you said you answered each letter with a story that the original letter shook loose from your ribcage. And I love that. You also said that you had time to drink a second coffee in the morning and your bare feet, which I also love. But these messages and your replies become care of letters, connections, and cures. I don't know where you are. I know you're in Ontario, but welcome. It's so lovely to see you again. Thank you so much, Sheila. It's so great to see you. I am joining you from the traditional territories of the Anishinaabek, the Haudenosaunee, the Ottowanderan, and the Lenapewok peoples known in the settler imagination as London, Ontario. And I've been thinking a lot about how I'm driving down Elgin Street and Wellington Street. I think the colonizers came here and then we couldn't even make up new names. And I'm in London, Ontario, where I'm the current Alice Monroe chair in creativity at the University of Western Ontario, which was a huge godsend getting this gig. I think I got the call in the first week of May 2020, just when Sarah and I were, when I partnered at the time when she was a singer-songwriter and a touring artist as well, when we were kind of going, okay, how are we going to keep the roof over? How are we going to pay the bills? How are we going to keep the wolf off the door? Because it all had just crumpled so fast as everybody knows. And I by no means have the worst story, but it was a scary time. And then I got this gig. So I'm grateful to the University of Western Ontario for this beautiful roof that's over my head right now. And yeah, I got that gig and pretty much as soon as I knew there was going to be some work coming in that freed my brain up from worrying about how I was going to not just pay my bills, but I was helping take care of my father as well, who was struggling with, at that point, the middle days of dementia. He's a little bit farther down that, that highway now. And yeah, so I'm very grateful. And I come from Whitehorse, Yukon, which is Conlon Dunn and Couch and Council territory. And I live part-time in Atlan, BC, Atlan, which means big water in the traditional territories of the Taku River Tlingit. And yeah, I wanted to thank Carline for that beautiful welcome. And yeah, it got me, of course, it doesn't take much, as you know, Sheila, to get me thinking about my grandparents. So my grandmother's name was put on my father's side was Patricia, Rita, she's born Leeper. Her last name was coming after she married my grandfather. She was Irish and Irish and a little bit Irish. And she was Oddish in Irish on my dad's side. And then on my grandma's, on my grandma's flow side, my maternal grandmother, as Florence Amelia, Mary does, born Florence Lawless, which I always liked that surname. And she was Irish and Roma, and a little bit Jewish. We found out later. And she married a Scottish Canadian guy by the name of Albert Dawes. I don't know what Albert's maiden name was. Anyway, it's so interesting. I've been thinking a lot about grandparents as well and great grandparents. And I always appreciate the teaching about grandparents and making sure, you know, you have four, if you're lucky, and remembering each one of them. And what I didn't know when I was growing up in Ottawa, on Algonquin territory, that my dad was Métis. And it was, it was something he kept very, very hidden. And now I've started to get to know my relatives and my ancestors too, which is really cool. And one day, you and I are going to talk nothing but grandparents and ancestors because like, yeah, it's just a lot of fun. My grandma flow was, she told everybody she was English, because she grew up in North London. And she told everybody she was English until actually until I started, I mean, we had heard about the, we had heard about the Roma blood just from but she did not, she would not, it wasn't until like, 2000, 2005, 2006, that she finally like completely fessed up. And that was because they were instructed to lie about who they were when the Nazis were the coming to power in Germany, just, you know, leading up to the Second World War, because she was Roma. And we know how the, the fascist felt about the Roma, and she was Jewish, and, and she was Irish in England, like none of those things she wants. So she just lich, and my grandma, my Irish grandma used to give her the gears about being the grand colonizer, right? Because she was, she and my grand, never, she never, she just took it, and she wasn't until well into her 90s, or well into her late 80s that she, she actually started to really talk about who she really was. I think I guess she finally felt safe enough, maybe? Yeah, yeah. Well, Ivan, the book, first of all, the honor of speaking to you again about it is, is fantastic, because I have so many questions. And the book came to mean so much more to me over the pandemic, and the time I had COVID, I found it was a real comfort. It was a real solace. I felt through your book, and through your stories, and the letterwriters, the power of connection, even though we had to be alone, and we had to isolate ourselves, especially when, like, we tested positive. And I've been thinking a lot about it, it's, it's this collection of, of wonderful letters and responses. And I love the call and response. There's so much of your life in it. Is it also a memoir? Oh, I don't know, you know, I've never been much interested in, in those genre classifications. So I haven't, it's a, I love the question. Is it a memoir? I guess of a sort. It's really, it really, to me, it was an, it was an homage to, to the letter itself, you know, and I learned that again, from my grandma, Pat, she was a fantastic letter writer. In fact, one of my things on my to-do list is, in storage in Vancouver is a box full of her letters, her letters to her sister Sheila, her letters to my uncle Jack, many of which contain early, early stories about me. As far back as three years old, scathing letters she wrote, she was a scathing, scathing letter writer, and she sometimes would make a, there's, what do you call it, carbon copies? Yeah, under a typewriter. She would take the carbon copy. She wrote the last letter to Shadow Lane Magazine complaining and announcing to them that she was doing away with her subscription because they were getting rid of the letters to the editor section of Shadow Lane Magazine and she was outraged and she thought that, you know, any periodical that didn't have a means of hearing feedback from its readers was no kind of periodical, I believe, quote, unquote. So to me it was, it's more a, I mean, in as much as a good letter is a memoir of, of at least a short memoir capturing a chapter of a person's life, you know, that, I mean, that's what they used to do. They would catch up by letter, right? Yeah. Somebody, one reviewer said that they thought it was a, it was a one long letter to my father, in essence. And I don't, I don't, I'm not sure about that, you know, it's interesting what people will glean or take from a book that might not have been in very, in the very forefront of my mind when I was, when I was writing it, but yeah. No readers, readers will bring their lives to it and vice versa and absorb it into their, into their rib cages as well. Yeah. And I, I also just have to settle a bet right now. Okay. I had lunch with the amazing writer, Monique Graysmith, Scottish Cree Lakota. And yeah. So I said, I have the honor and, you know, I, I saw Ivan just right before the pandemic lockdown and we had an excellent hug. We did. And Monique said, well, I think mine was closer to it and it was, you're going to tell me it was, because she ran into you in an airport. And so did she have the best last hug? Well, I think they were both excellent hugs. I'm just going to say that. Okay. So it's not about quality of hug here, but I hugged you and I know for a fact it was February 26th, 2020. And I know for many reasons. One, it comes up in the book. Two, it was my grandmother, Patricia's would have been her 100th birthday. Yeah. It was also the day that I, it's that there was much magic afoot that night. I still have that little glass heart that you gave me too, by the way. Yeah, it's in my, it's in my bag of trinkets that I pack with me in all my travels, which are still many. And it was the day that I, I saw, I pitched a book deal to Jared Blant, who ended up being the editor of this book. And there was many, many, many, and as you know, that night at the Nanaimo Public North District branch of the Nanaimo Public Library, there, there ended up being, I think, well, I know, I know five of, I think five of the letters, six of the letters came from people who were in the room that night. Yeah, that was incredible. Yeah. And that was a, that was a fluke, or there was some connection. I mean, there was the letter that I answered to Adri about her daughter, Kate, letter number two, she was there in the room, but she had written me before, but I didn't know that the woman I met that night was the same woman from the, from the letters, from the letter. Bernie, no, Bernie's partner had written me who's, who wrote the letter about top surgery. They had, they had written me that morning. And the same, that same day it was, even Jared, when we were going through it, I said, I don't want to sound like a hippie, but have you noticed like there's too many coincidences in this book for it to be a coincidence? You know what I mean? And he agreed that there was much magic afoot in, in all the connections, like there's a math connection too. There's a mathematician, there's a statistician, there's a kid, a trans kid who wants to be a mathematician. I have a weird rain man brain for numbers. Nobody, I don't talk about it that much, but I do, I have like a weird, it's a weird, I don't know, I hardly ever use it. Yeah. So I hugged Monique Grace Smith on March 10th, 2020. I flew to, from Vancouver to Toronto, from Toronto to London, or maybe Sarah picked me up. And March 12th, 2020 was when I was there to go do a couple of gigs in St. Catherine's, all of which were canceled on that Friday the 13th. So March, March 13th, 2020. So Monique Grace Smith was the last hug I had before, except for from Sarah, of course, before, before we went into that, the lockdown. Yeah. I owe her 20 bucks. Okay. And I don't think I got to hug you in seashells. So I haven't hugged you yet since then. Yeah. And I haven't hugged Monique. So now we get to see who gets the, which one of you I get to hug first. Oh, I thought it was going to be the quality of hug. Okay, well. Oh, there's going to be exceptional hugs. I don't know, like those hugs that, for people that you have not seen since 2020, there's nothing like them. There really isn't, there really isn't. There's, you know, we start running into people now and it's not like the pandemic is over. We know that. And, but, but people will say, how was your pandemic, as though, how was your vacation? Right? It's, it's so weird. It's just so strange. But for you, I mean, I know you, you were able to get to these letters and, and write responses. But as a performing, what do you call yourself a writer, performer? No, that's not it. You have a very beautiful title and I will, it will come back to me. But how, how not doing that? What was that like? It was multi-layered for me to be honest with you. February of 2020, like when I saw you, I didn't even know how burnt out I was. I had just done, so it was kind of, so what happened was the Surrey School District was having a lot of problem with kind of gender-based and anti-trans and anti-queer bullying in the, in their school system. It's a, it's a very, very big school district. Usually when I do school shows the individual school funds it from either their PAC funds or, you know, their, their guest speakers or sometimes as a EDI initiative or anti-bullying work. Sometimes they have a storytelling component in their curriculum, or they bring me in to speak with the, with the SOG club or the, the queer students union or, you know, like that, right? So, but what happened in February, January, February of 2020 was that I had a friend who was on the sort of EDI committee for the whole school district and she got a big chunk of funding and, and, and, and so to cover it for the schools. So she said, I remember them saying, you know, I'll probably be about maybe 18, 20 school shows. We're not going to force any schools to bring the trans storyteller in, of course, but, you know, they can sign up voluntarily and we're expecting maybe half of them. Well, every single school in the school district, I think was 42 schools, some of them had 3,600 kids and they only could fit 800 in the, so they would book me for three a day. And so I did, I think it was 42 school shows in like six weeks or something like that. And like sometimes three a day. And I had said, like, I can only do four days out of, out of the week, especially if I'm doing multiple shows and driving in between and traffic and, and, and, you know, if you're already at the school, maybe you could do four that day to make out. So, you know, and so, and I wanted, and it was, I had to spend their, this money before the end of the fiscal year and I was going to be on tour for all of March, right? As you know. And so I was going to be out East. So I just did all these shows and it was, so until the fall of 2019, I did a, like what I call like a pink shirt school show, like kind of the message was like, don't be an asshole. And a lot of trans content was came out of the Q&A and the kids would ask me what pronoun do you use and have you had top surgery and dear, does your grandma still love you and that kind of stuff. But that would come in the Q&A. But after many, many years of school administrators and librarians, English teachers and social justice class teachers saying, you know, could you please, please, please do a more, like we need the tools, we need the tools, we need to have the conversations about bathrooms and we need to do trans 101 and pronouns and could you please, so I rewrote the show, still trying to be, like you still have to ultimately connect to 800 teenagers in a gymnasium on a Friday afternoon, like it is not meant for the faint of heart, right? And it's, it's the hardest work I've ever done. And so I wrote this, like specifically trans show and the backlash was immediate and it was terrifying. And I got doxxed online by an organized right wing, free speech, their cover photo on their Instagram page was Brett Kavanaugh. Just yeah. Okay. Yeah. And they put my address online and then the kids themselves, most of them, of course, 99.999% of them were fantastic, but I got followed out to my car by two little Jordan Peterson fans. I thought I was going to get gay bashed in the parking lot of the high school I'd just done an anti-believing show at. A kid did a Hitler salute in a, in an auditorium of 450 kids, because I was telling a grandmother story. And I was telling the story of how my grandmother lied about who she was to protect herself. Because there was a dangerous man, I said, coming to power. Does anyone know in Germany, just before the Second World War, who would that be? And one of the kids said Hitler and another kid stood up and did the full on like see Kyle thing. And then the worst part was, was that none of the other kids would, would, would tell on who he was. He was a rich kid whose daddy was a lawyer and it was awful. And they peed all over a gender neutral bathroom right across from the gymnasium. Like it just went on and on and on. So to be honest with you, the first six months, I was, I was doing some rest and repair. And, and I didn't realize how burnt out and how, I think traumatized I was. I think, I think I, I just carried it with me little by little by little, I guess how you do, you know. And so the first six, seven, eight months, I can't say I didn't miss the road because I'll always miss the road. But I needed to be off it. I needed that time. It was a time of stillness for me. I had, I had planted so many gardens and so many flowers and so many shrubs that I had never been able to be around long enough to fully watch like blossom and bud and blossom and die and wilt. And I hadn't been able to watch that beautiful life cycle because I was always, you know, I was always packing the suitcase and coming back from somewhere else. So yeah, and I just don't think the road's ever going to feel the same like something that gets taken away and you get back. I feel like you return to it in a different way. And I think all of us are different, you know, I'm really searching out ways to smarter and to stay home longer. And that might be a factor of I'm three years older now too, right? And, and I guess part of my healing was realizing how burnt out I was. And I don't want to do that to myself, to the environment, to our beautiful Mother Earth, you know, I don't want to take 120 flights in a year, you know, it's not sustainable. And when we have these kind of things, and of course, this is not, but it also is there's 182 participants. Hi, everybody. Welcome from I wish I could know where they're all from. Maybe maybe our hosts will tell us. I, it's accessible, you know, I'm wearing track pants right now, you can't, I, you know, you don't know that. And none of us are having to get on airplanes. And we've got close captioned. And, you know, I know it's not the same as a live event, but it is a different thing. And it is to be celebrated and fostered and can be, you know, can be done with grace and, and, and good lighting and good cameras. And, you know, I got a little something, something here going, oh, what, what, what, there's two of them. My, I realized my lighting is done by a complete radio person, me. And so there's like all these weird shadows going across. I've got eight eyebrows. But we do have our first question, Ivan. And, and, and it's, it's perfect. Because, well, it's a question about how you feel being back to your intense travel schedule and show schedule. Maybe it's not as intense, but there's another part to the question, which is, how do you avoid burnout now? And I would just like to say at this point, please, as your questions come in while we're talking, I'm, I'm happy. I'm not going to store them up in a little nut house for the end, not a squirrel. And so as, as they come in, it would be wonderful to bring you the viewer, the attendee into the conversation. So this first is an anonymous attendee and how you avoid burnout now and how it feels to be sort of getting back into it. Okay, I will never return to touring to the same kind of intensity. As I, as I, as I did a pre pandemic, for many, many reasons, one is, is that the economic reality is so vastly different. I mean, hotels have doubled flights are, I would say 60% more gas is more expensive. Good luck getting a rental car. When I tried to get a rental car to go to seashell last time we saw each other. I think they wanted 16 or $1,700 for five days for a little compact rental car. Luckily, Jane Davidson knew a person and who knew a guy who knew someone who owned a thing and you know, got me, we got a better deal. But it's just not going to be feasible in the same way. And what do I do? I just, I'm changed on a fundamental level. I'm not going to, I'm not the same person. I've broken up with the city. I'm moving back to, I'm in, I'm here in London until the end of next semester. And then I'm going back up to the Yukon. I don't know what I'm going to do with my place. It's got, I've got a sub letter in there right now in Vancouver. I may sell it. I'm, I'm, I'm letting myself get to the end of this, this, this thing and, and, and I've got a, the person who's renting my place right now is in there till August 1st to think it is. I'll decide then I've given myself, you know, that time to, to think about it. I'm going to be living most of my time in the Yukon and Atlan. Atlan's just over the Yukon BC border, 42 kilometers. It's 100 kilometers away from a cell phone signal. I'm fine with that. It has spotty internet at best. I'm not so fine with that. I'll probably be driving into town to my mom's place to do gigs like this. I just, I spend a lot of time in the summers, the last three, well, not the summer of 2020, I was in Ontario, but 2021 last summer and 2019 as well before the pandemic. On three little acres in Atlan and speaking of squirrels. Did you know that squirrels change their tone of voice when there's a predator on the property? No. Yeah. So I spent the summer of 2021 listening to a mom, mama squirrel and two babies that she had echo locate with each other all the time. And then every couple of weeks or so, my carpenter friend would come with his three legged dog, um, Gimli. And as soon as Gimli got out of the truck, the squirrels would change their tone of voice. And it was the mama squirrel telling the babies to be cautious. And, um, and you, you had the time to notice that. Yeah. That's a lovely thing. Those things are important to me. So I, I am going to, I'm going to be very much more mindful of how much time I spend on the road and whether or not I have to be there physically. Um, and I still want to be there physically for, for, for some shows, for sure. I, I, I imagine I'll be at this for a while, but I've, um, I've lowered my sugar intake quite substantially. Um, I, uh, I started skipping rope. I had to hang up the skipping rope for a while, but we started skipping rope in the very, very early days of the pandemic. Um, I, I now have a bit of a foot injury. So skipping rope is hard on, on the body, on if you're older and you have, you know, little junk in the trunk. I, I have a foot injury. So, but, um, I, I do a lot more, I just, I, and I just, I operate at a slower pace and I'm, I'm good with that. I still get, I'm still like, you know, compared to some people. I, I'm sure, um, I'm sure there's people out there going, I have a coyote at a slower pace. I don't think so. But to me, I know I'm operating at a slower, a slower pace. And I'm looking at some passive income sources, like a sub-stack and selling, um, access to on a prerecorded show that people that so school shows, I think my school show days might be done. I've performed for over 650,000 middle and grade school, middle school and high school kids on five continents now. And, um, it's storytelling on the edge, you know. Sometimes I go to, would go to festivals and there'd be like a lovely, lovely writer, just a lovely person, great, great author, great books. And they're like, Oh, I'm thinking about getting into doing some shows in schools. And I hear that you do a lot of that. And no, would you like to, do you have any advice? And I would just be like, honey, it would be like throwing you to the lions. You do not have, and I don't want, I wouldn't do that to you. It takes a certain kind of performer to get in front of 800, grade 11s are the worst, grade eights are the worst, let's be honest. But you know, half of them with earbuds, you've got 45 seconds for them to decide whether or not you're a dork or not. And anyone over the age of 18 is a dork anyways. And, you know, luckily, I would just take my long sleeve shirt off and they'd go, hang on, whoa, what's going on here? You know, but it's, it was really hard work. I'm glad I'm proud of the work I did. But, and I think if I remove the school shows, which are a grind and hard and in auditoriums for people who are not consenting in all the ways that, you know, like doing a theater show where everybody wants to come, you know, as opposed to like, they're making us go to an auditorium for a lecture, where there's a speaker, what is it this time? Crystal meth, pregnant teenage pregnancy, oh, trans, I don't know, some gay thing, you know. But, you know, we've got a question. I'm going to slip this right in because it's, it's so apropos. Okay, Nancy Masterman, who, who says first of all, thank you for doing all those school presentations. Do you feel they made a difference? Oh, I know they made a difference. I mean, I did them for 20 years. So I literally have performed for the children of people I performed for, right. And I mean, look at Kara of how many of those letters are people, how many letters have I gotten? I mean, there's no question that I did, I did work that was that was had some value. I mean, I stood up in front of 650,000 kids. So let's say if we go with a, I think fairly conservative estimate of 10%, we're talking about 65,000 queer or trans youth, that if at the very least I might not have, you know, I might not have like, you know, they might not have liked it, but at the very least I was up there, I was unapologetic, I was unashamed, and I answered their questions, and I provided some sort of representation that I certainly never had access to, you know, I mean, it's a true story and I've told it many times, but it doesn't doesn't make it any less true. I went to the White Horse Public Library in 1982. Now keep in mind, my grandma flow was a bookbinder there, so I was terrified of getting busted for this. So I went in and I asked the librarian for like books on sharks, giraffes, outer space, Caligula, spontaneous human combustion and homosexuality, and I just put that, just snuck it in, and the librarian, whom I knew and who knew my grandmother came back, you know, and said, well, spontaneous human combustion, that's over in the magazine index, you're going to have to look that up, you know where spaces, I know you know where sharks are. I was always at the library because my grandma worked in the back room, binding, fixing books, right? And then she was like, this is all I have on homosexuality. And it was the well of loneliness. And the main character, oh yeah, the main character, you know, it wasn't the language for it, but I would say is non-binary or trans and dies in the end, like it actually dies before the end, it was, you know, it was not an uplifting, I wouldn't recommend it for any struggling queer youth, you know, and she was, she knew that, she knew that when she gave it to me and she apologized that it was the only text she had, right? And I mean, meeting a queer, you know, there was a letter carrier that everybody knew. And I literally used to like, you know, watch her, I worked, one of the places I worked downtown when I was 14, 15, she was the letter carrier, and I literally used to like stop and watch her. I wasn't like, it wasn't a sexual thing, she was much older than me, but it was like, it was like, it was like a sighting, it was like a sighting, you know, and so, I mean, I guess I think I know, I know I did some good work, even just showing up and letting someone like those kids know that they weren't the only gay in the village. And I went to some villages, let me tell you, it wasn't a small town that, they asked me, I went. Well, and there's a letter in Kara from Kate, who's a bookseller in, I think in Vancouver, yep, Vancouver Island, who grew up in Halifax, and understanding that queer and trans kids can now see themselves in books, in stories is like, you got to watch Billy Crystal faking being gay, right? There just wasn't a lot out there. You know, the first trans character I ever saw was in the crying game. And, you know, even the man who loved her like vomited when he, when he, you know, found out who she really was, like, and that was, that was considered representation because we existed in it, you know, people weren't, you know, we didn't have the luxury of being too picky about, about how we were represented, right? You know, and I mean, that's the exciting thing about the whole literary scene right, right now. And the last I would say, I don't know, I was just talking to the lovely Zoe Whittle about this. I had her as a guest on my active voice series last last semester in, I think I had her in March. I think she was a guest in March, if I'm not mistaken. And she was saying, remember, we used to go to the festivals and there would be like, if there was another queer person at all. And she said, you could literally fit all the queer authors, much less trans, queer authors would fit at one table. You know, and, and they would stick us all together, like, you know, we would taint the heterosexual events at the festival or whatever they would be like spiking the punch or like, you know, whatever it was spice night, they would stick us all together. And there was eight of us, you know, and now there's so many I can't keep up with it. I can't, I can't keep up with it. And, and I would say the similar thing with indigenous, indigenous authors and writers and, you know, like you look at the nonfiction bestsellers, there's been multiple times in the last two years where it's been, yeah, this 10 writers, you know, it's not the indigenous writers top 10 list. This is the top 10. And there's Bob Joseph Jr. who wrote what he called a curious little book called 21 things you may not know about the Indian. It has been on the best four years, four years. Look at our buddy. Good. Look at sherry. Absolutely. Absolutely. David A. Robertson. He's like, he's like hitting, he's hitting like, uh, hat tricks. Right out. Yeah. Three, three crows in the top 10. Right. And then Michelle Good, who's like number one or number two for the last wept and a sweat the awards like and sweat the awards. Yeah. So yeah, it's an incredibly, uh, it's a really exciting time. It just, it just feels so good. And even when I started doing the next chapter 15 years ago, I've seen incredible just the surge. Let's celebrate the surges. The surges are fantastic. I'm going to go to the questions because our time's flying. I knew this would happen. Um, I really wanted to, oh, there's, there's a comment. Thanks for coming to seashell this summer. We love you. Thank you. I love seashell. Uh, what are you doing with your musical talent? I remember you playing with queer as punk. Oh, yeah. I'm, you know, that's from the week is I was thinking to myself, so both my baritone saxophones and my tenor are all in atlin in the basement. Um, and the nice thing about that property is there's not a lot of places you can play the baritone saxophone and not disturb your neighbors. Let's be honest. And that is one of them. And I'm going to, so when I get home next April, I want to start, uh, or join a band. I was, I even put on Twitter the other day. I really love the bottom end and I love the sound, the bottom end, but I've always skewed low. Like I like the bass guitar. I like the sousaphone. I like the tuba. I like the bass clarinet. I like the bassoon. I like the French horns. Sousaphone. Right? You're it for the sousaphone. So I was like, I want to, I want to start a band that's all lower end instruments have a baritone as a, as a singer, a submissive baritone and, and call it, um, the bottom ends. You know, we do heavy metal covers, obviously. There was, okay, but I know that some people who are attending will remember Morningside program on, on CBC radio, uh, with Peter Zosky. He had a low off. He had like a contest about with, with three guys, how low could they sing? Yeah. And Tom, Tom Jackson was one of them. Gary Relier, who's a baritone. Why do I remember this? And I don't know where my keys are. Okay. And then there was another guy. Oh God. Anyway, it was a rock singer. It was hilarious. Yeah. Because they would keep going lower and lower until they almost couldn't breathe. But my, my favorite low note in the whole world of a lot of favorite low notes is Aretha Franklin. It's on one bap, one Lord, one baptism, one Lord, one baptism, one faith. It's, it's Aretha Franklin, Mavis Staples, the staple singer, Jesse Jackson in Atlanta, Georgia. Have you ever heard that album? Oh, I'm going to play it for you next time we hang out. And Jesse Jackson does an introduction and then Mavis, any, you know, please welcome one of the greatest joys of our lives, Sister Mavis Staples, Sister Aretha Franklin. And so these two, I mean, oh gee, powerhouse women are coming to the stage. And they start, we met on a Mississippi road one night. And yeah, and Aretha, she hits this low note that is, my hair stand up on my arms right now thinking about it. She's so, such a genius, right? And it's so beautiful. And then I remember hearing her, no, I must have seen her because I can remember what she did with her mouth. Somebody said, Rita, the average human voice has a average, even a trained singer, human voice has a has a ray of vocal range of three octaves. I've heard it said that yours is over four. Is that true, Aretha? And she goes, five. Love, love. That's so good. Wow, beautiful. Okay, I got there are a few more questions coming in, Ivan. And you're making me laugh and cry at the same time, which is what you do. The Coyote one too, that's what I call that. Yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one. The one to paw, right? Quick little question. When you're touring now, do you find yourself sending more written letters or postcards? Yes, I do. I've always loved letters. I've always loved postcards. I've always loved snail mail. Shout out to my friend Carly Boyce in Toronto. She's such a great letter writer and note writer and gift sender. And I all of those things are, they're so great. Like, who doesn't love getting a letter? You know, an email is great. Don't come you're wrong. Text is great too. I love that. I'd love a DM. I'm not against any of those things, but man, I just love a letter. So yeah, I do. And I've collected postcards. And, you know, every book I've ever done with the exception of care of, I think I had Arsenal print up a postcard of the cover and a real postcard like with the space on the back to write on and stuff like not just just an ad postcard, right? Like a real postcard. And yeah, absolutely for sure. Here's a question from Jen Ham. Ivan, your stories have impacted me deeply as a nurse, an educator, and most importantly as a mother and a person. Thank you truly from my heart for your teachings. When I read care of, I was so struck by your vulnerability and generosity in the sharing of yourself. How do you discern how much to share? This is a great question. How much to share? And what to hold sacred? And do you ever have sharing remorse? Well, the word let's unpack the word vulnerable just for a second. Because if you look at the dictionary definition of the word vulnerable, it means open to attack. And there's other meanings, but that's the first definition. And people say that a lot like you're so thank you for being so vulnerable, I could never do it. And what they're saying is they could never do that, that they would feel open to attack. I don't feel that. I don't feel that on stage. I want to amplify that. On stage is a place of, it's a sacred place for me. I try to bring my best self onto that stage as much as I am humanly capable of whatever minor annoyance or petty grievance I might be holding in my head. I try to erase it. I try to scatter it from my heart before I step up there. And to me being on stage, connecting with other people on an emotional level that the right story told by the right person at the right time and the right place in the right way can do is the most powerful thing I've ever seen. We've all witnessed it. We've all been a part of that cycle of that circle of connection. And to be able to take someone to a place emotionally is it's a hugely powerful thing. I don't find it vulnerable at all. What I struggle with and where I am vulnerable in the negative connotation of that word is at the book signing table. That's when people will step across my boundaries. I've been groped. I've been sexually harassed at book signing tables or those spaces. I've had people say inappropriate things touch me, hug me when I was not comfortable with that. One of the things I'm hoping that we take out of we carry with us is I'm down with this six foot rule. And this is something that I started modeling a lot when I was doing school shows with youth when they would want to take pictures. I would say, is it okay if I put my hand on your shoulder? And they would all go, yeah, of course, of course. But my thing is being more conscious of those things. So actually up on stage in my so-called vulnerable space is not vulnerable to me. It's a very extremely powerful place and it holds within it when done right and with done the right kind of humility and the right kind of compassion and love. And I know this doesn't, it seems counterintuitive to some people, but you have to listen while you're talking up there. And you have to listen with your hair follicles and your pores of your skin and your ears and your eyes and your heart. And yeah, I don't think I have sharing remorse. I think my mother has sharing remorse on my part. I think she wishes there were certain things I wouldn't talk about. But like I am fond of telling my mother who I love, who hopefully you'll meet one day, when I bring you to the Yukon, which we'll talk about my plans for that because you're going to, it's going to be so great. But what I tell my mother is, you know, nobody ever won an award writing a book that didn't piss off their mother. Like that just never happens. Yeah, there it is. I hope that answers the question asked. Great question, Jen. Thanks. And there's, there are a couple, I'm keeping my eye on the clock because I want to tell everyone who's tuned in. Ivan's going to read. And I think that is going to be great. So I want to make sure that we've got enough space for that. Interesting question. Marni Rice, I tuned in live online for the book launch of Kara. On stage, you made a joke about the Yukon internet. And soon after the connection to the theater was lost. When you settle in Atlan, are you worried that the Yukon internet holds grudges? That could be a quick yes or no. I did literally, yeah, because we had been rehearsing that thing because it was complicated. We had people, we had like, we had a team of people in Toronto, we had the Penguin Random House folks, we had I think night 17 of the, of the letter writers present in the zoom call, we had the zoom call projected on the screen behind me so I could physically turn around and talk to them like we had a big massive thing with one and off it and it goes and we went down for I think it was 11 and a half minutes. And that internet connection never actually came up. Again, what Josh did, the technical director at the Yukon Art Center was he remembered that during Arctic winter games like four years before they had put in a second internet line and he literally ran to the storeroom somewhere and got a really long internet cable and ran up to some office and ran it through the, through the lobby and down and into the controller and plugged us and got us back up sort of half-assedly going. And, and we got back online and Jared of course was there hosting in Toronto. And so, and then Atlan is even sketchier because I have satellite Wi-Fi there. So it can go down because it's too snowy, too foggy, too cloudy and even too windy. So I, yeah, I guess I hate to admit it but I'm waiting for Elon Musk to get his star link up. He's one of the, it's going to change things for the north. He's, he's hearing you right now. I'm pretty sure he's got a question lined up in the Q&A. There's some very beautiful comments which I, I'm going to suggest to the wonderful North Shore organizers, they capture somehow and send to me and send to you. Yeah, it's great. Donnie writes, do you miss working with your hands? Would you like to go back to Carpentry? Back to Carpentry. I'm fly, I'm going, I'm doing Writers Fest and on Thursday and a couple gigs on Friday for a union and I'm heading back up to the Yukon Saturday morning and I'm hoping to be, I'm going to finish up my vapor barrier on Monday. So I don't have to miss Carpentry and I've got so much work to do. I'll be back at it. And yeah, if this whole storyteller thing, you know, I worked a couple days as a carpenter last summer, the carpenter I hired, I, I, we were about to do something wrong and I said, hold on. We forgot to factor in like the, the, the decking into our, and, and she's like, yeah, you're right. Yeah, we just spoke. I said, not bad for a writer. Hey, she said, not bad for a carpenter. And so she, so she hired me for a couple days here and there. And which I was super chuffed about. And then I got actually hired as an electrician, which is was my other trade. So I don't have to miss working with my hands because I haven't been, I haven't even lost my alice from the summer yet. Yeah. Okay, this is where things get tough for me as the moderator because I'm, I'm looking at my little clock and there's three minutes to the time I know, but you know what, I have to tell the story. Okay. I have to tell a very important story and then hopefully maybe I'll cut my reading down and we can fit in some time for some extra questions. Okay. I'm sitting down. What's your story? Okay. So my dad had a stroke and fell and went into care in starting in July 13th. And he's, we finally got a placement in long-term care. But before that, he was living in my house. He built, sold, I bought back long story anyway, my house, but he was living in it. I get back in April and he was, I think depressed and had dementia and was not staying on top of the cleaning. Let's just say that. And I had asked him not to smoke in the house, but he had spent smoking in the house. So I spent three days just scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing. And I was scrubbing the filthy, disgusting toilet and he kept coming in and I had gloves on and I had rubber boots on and he kept coming in and bugging me while I was cleaning the toilet, right? And you know, the TV's not working, the cable's not working. I said, I know you always switch the input. I'll come and fix it in a second. Just, you know, just give me a sec. Yeah, because I have something, something and I got a bit snippy with him. I, and to Mike, you know, in my defense, I had been cleaning his house with him, just staring at me and then telling me what I was doing wrong, but not helping me. So my fuse was a little bit, maybe a bit and I, so I snipped down my, I said, like, just, you know, as soon as I'm finished scrubbing your off the wall, I'll be in your pee off the floor, then I'll be right out there to help you with your television. He was like, that's your problem, right? And I, I mean, it was the end of four years of elder care and, and, you know, I did my best to stay patient with the same questions over and over again, but I think I was tired. My knees were hurting and I just snapped and I said, you know, do you think I don't have better things to do with my time than cleaning your toilet? Like seriously, you know, I am the author of 13 books. I've been nominated for the Governor-General's Award. You know, I, Sheila Rogers, one time called me a national treasure. He's standing in the doorway and he goes, oh, and I should warn anyone who's not this, I'm trying to state true to what actually happened, but there is some language. So if you're offended by the F word, might be a good time to go have a pee or something or get yourself a snack. So I said, Sheila Rogers one time, call me a national treasure. I'm still on my, on my knees in this pee, right? And he's standing in the doorway and he goes, who's fucking Sheila Rogers? And I go, from the fucking CBC, dad. Jesus. And he goes, what's the CBC? Oh, I love your dad. I started laughing so hard. And I immediately like scrambled for my cell phone. I was trying to get it out of the pocket. I was wearing, I was wearing like a painter's suit because it was like a, it was a hazmat situation, right? So I'm digging around trying to get my cell phone. What are you going to do with that? He says, you know, what are you going to do with that? He says, there's no cell service here. I said, I know I'm just getting a number out of it. I'm going to call someone who you're going to call. He says, I said, I'm going to call fucking Sheila Rogers. And then I did. I called you from the landline, but you didn't pick up. You probably didn't wonder who the hell was called you from Atlin BC in the landline. Probably. That's a great story. I've been waiting for months to tell you that. I'm so happy to hear it. And I may have to just like exit and have a be myself. That was just awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Story time. Let's do this reading. And this is, so this was one, I think if I'm not mistaken, this was one of the oldest letters that I had sat on. And it was written on March or I received it on March 17th, 2011. And if I'm not mistaken, it was an email. Hello, Ivan, I attended your lecture last night. It was so wonderful, quite distinguished. Oh, I was the distinguished lecture. I was the writer and resident at the University of Winnipeg. Um, quite distinguished in my humble estimation. I really appreciate your perspective on growing up working class. Your story is very close to mine. My father was a storyteller. My favorite memories of my father are of him sitting around the campfire telling a story with the look of joy on his face and remembering some past humorous event. In some way, many storytellers seem to share an intonation of voice, a way of speaking. So when you speak, it reminds me of him. I'm also reminded of him when you tell stories about your father, the beauty of their gruff masculinity and the vulnerability that's there under the surface. It makes me so happy to hear you tell stories about him, even the short little comments about his thoughts and advice. It invariably makes me tear up, but since I am in a public place and it doesn't make much sense to others as to why I'm crying, I gulp back my tears. But when I read your stories about your dad, when I read your stories about your dad, I sob like a baby. Speaking of my father in the past, hence suggests he's dead, but he's not. He and my mom live in Moorland, Moorhead, Minnesota, across the river from Fargo, North Dakota in the same house I grew up in. But for over two years, they haven't spoken to me and have responded to my emails with only a line of hope you are well. I came out to them when I was 16. I made my father cry the only time in my life I ever saw him cry, not even at his parents' deaths. And I went on to date men and to marry a wonderful man whom I am still close friends with. At the end of my marriage, two years ago, I came out to my parents again. They explained that they would continue to see and speak to me if I never talked about that and never brought any of those people to their home. Despite missing them, I chose not to hide myself. Why am I telling you this? I sort of wonder myself, but I've felt a great desire to tell you about this for a while, but I feel so starstruck that I cannot bring myself to talk to you. Also, I'd likely cry and not be able to say anything. I want to share my gratitude for what a wonderful gift you give me with the stories you write and tell about your father and family. It's a smidge of my own. It helps me remember that which I actively avoid thinking about due to my sadness and disappointment. So thank you, Ivan Coyote, for allowing me to be with you and your dad, allowing me to be with my own. So that was March 17th, which is my sister's birthday, 2011. And I finally wrote Dear Angela back July 29th, 2020. Dear Angela, I want to thank you again for your email. I can see from my email history that I wrote you a short response thanking you for your letter four days after I received your original email way back in 2011. It's probably going to be weird hearing back from me now, very nearly nine and a half years later. But I always meant to write you a true and proper response. So here I am. I talked to my dad today. I called him just before I sat down to write to you. Have you ever heard that song Mercy Now by Mary Goche? It's the first verse of that song that always reaches right into my chest and squeezes so hard. My father could use a little mercy now. I won't sing the whole thing because I picked the wrong key, but the fruits of his labor fall and rot slowly on the ground. His work is almost over. It won't be long. He won't be around. I love my father. He could use some mercy now. I was driving north in my old truck the first time I really listened to those lyrics. The Alaska Highway. I've lost count of how many times I've spent four days alone on that road. A mug full of coffee between my thighs and a sad song on the stereo and the road stretched out like a dusty zipper through all those spruce and pine trees. I'm always either on my way to see my family or on my way back to the big city and processing my visit with them. And my dad lives in a little town called Atlan about 200 kilometers south of Whitehorse just over the Yukon BC border. And every time I turn left off the road to Whitehorse and then right and then left and left again into his will aligned driveway, I hear Mary Goche's lyrics in my head. The fruits of his labor fall and rot slowly on the ground. I can picture his little house right now. He never finished painting the railing on the deck. The lawn hasn't been mowed since I did it last fall before I left. His boat is still in the garage. It's engine sitting in pieces on a tarp on the concrete floor of his shop, even though it's almost August now. He's sitting in his chair on the corner of the wraparound deck smoking a cigarette. He will wave when I drive up in park but he won't get up. His feet hurt and so does his back. I spent all of last summer there. He and I were supposed to work together fixing up his place, finishing the sauna. He started the previous fall and building a little cabin out in the tree behind his place for me and Sarah. We had big plants but the red wine and the depression got to him before I could and he spent most of the summer smoking on that deck. I remember one morning when I came into his house from my little travel trailer to put on some coffee and make oatmeal. My dad had the television on but the sound turned right down. He was sitting on the couch wearing the same clothes he'd had on the day before watching me with watery eyes as I moved around his kitchen. He sighed and stared at the rug on the floor in front of the couch. Told me he was sorry he hadn't been any help with stuff around the place lately. I just haven't been myself. Ever since Pat died, he confessed. I know it's been three years now and I should just get the fuck over it and get on with my life but I can't seem to do that. I walked over and took his empty coffee cup from the end table and refilled it, dropped in two sugar cubes and passed it to him. Dad, I told him softly. Pat died six years ago. Not three. Anyway, I just read your letter again and I won't pretend that I can understand at all what it must be like to be so disconnected from your parents and I'm sorry for the pain that this brings you. I'm so glad hearing my stories about my dad helps you with that sadness, even just a little. I'm not sure if the truth of him and I will bring you any comfort either but I feel compelled for some reason to tell you that my relationship with my father is by far the most painful and complicated one in my life. Barnon, no contest and since forever. I know he lies to me about how much he's drinking. I know he lies to me about whether or not he drank before he drove that long and winding highway from Whitehorse back to Atlan alone. I'm not even sure anymore why I ask him these kind of questions. I've prayed for him to get or stay sober for well over 30 years now. Ever since him and my mom divorced and the booze really took the wheel in his life. If he was a happy or even a happier drunk, I think I could let it go for the most part but he is not. My sober father is funny and talented and creative and hardworking and charismatic. He loves dogs and talking to strangers in the grocery store and cooking and fishing and building boats. My drunk father is cynical, mistrusting, paranoid. He's angry, guilty, unemployed and depressed. He loves nothing but mostly he is just so sad. I'm not sure what would be worse to be honest, not talking to him at all and wondering if he is okay or talking to him every Saturday like I do and knowing for certain that he is not. I've never been one to quantify pain. I don't think sadness can be measured. I read your letter again and this time I learned that sometimes I tell the good stories about my father to strangers at shows so that I can remember him telling a joke and teaching me to tie the right knot in my fishing line. I choose the stories I tell about him so that I can remember him younger and handsome and laughing. I tell good stories so that those are the words that ring out louder in the room than my heartbreak and my disappointment too. Nine and a half years is a long time to wait for a letter to come. I think if I had written you back properly way back then this might be a very different letter. Nine years ago my dad's wife was still working in town at the auto parts place. She was about to retire and we didn't know anything about the cancer in her throat or her lungs or her brain. Nine years ago I didn't have any gray hair yet and I hadn't been married or divorced. Nine years ago my father's boat was still tied up at the dock in that big lake all ready for the weekend to come and he mowed the lawn once a week all summer. Nine years ago you hadn't really talked to your parents for two years. I would love to hear back from you about how things are with your parents now if things have shifted or grown or grown over. I don't think that the guy who wrote that time heals all wounds had a dad anything like yours or mine. I hope these last nine years have brought you a little more peace in your heart. I hope you have found and held onto some good stories of your father too. Maybe he grew tired of missing you and came around a little. If life has been good maybe you took your girlfriend home to Moorhead Minnesota for a visit last winter and your parents cooked a roast and put on put out the good tablecloth and the new silverware maybe you and your dad lit a big fire after dinner and you all sat around it together just talking storytellers. We can't help but keep hoping that there might just be a happier ending in there somewhere. Please say hi to Winnipeg for me with much love. Ivan. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for that reading and everything. Yeah it's so. Thanks for that too. That was that was really beautiful and I wanted to ask you have you heard back from the people that you wrote back to? Yeah I've several times from several of them um actually Angela wrote to me back um she um I don't want to get the details wrong I didn't brush up on them but she did reconnect with her she did reconnect with her father when her mom passed away I believe um yeah I've uh I've heard back from many of them I some of them I've some of them I've met now and I'm hoping to meet more of them um you know what we did was forge like a forever connection via the publication of these letters and everybody got paid I got some money from the Canada Council and and and Penguin Random's or McLeod and Stewart they um they coughed up some money too so every letter writer got paid um except for S the anonymous one still waiting hoping that S will I've got 350 bucks sitting there waiting and two copies two free copies hardcover um of the book when when S finally hopefully contacts me that's they that was in Victoria they left a note under under the windshield of my car an anonymous note in two colors of blue ink and um yeah so um yeah I uh in fact I just heard from Ace a couple of I got a text from Ace just a couple of a couple weeks ago so I have these weird and the father son father and trans son team from Edmonton next time I'm in Edmonton I'm actually going to go for dinner with their whole family so yeah it's uh it's been a journey a really beautiful journey this book I this is not a question and and you don't need to reply but I think reading through it again as I didn't ever read it sort of all the way through ever in one sitting because I I went to your book when I needed it and and when I needed family that's I found family in this book and I I want to say a personal thank you I know I'm not the only one who has felt that way and all the beautiful comments that have come in from people who attended um thank you for for sharing your great gift so many of them with us you're fucking awesome sorry sorry I should have worn people that I was gonna say that but content summary um yeah I wanted to you know so I will light a candle for your mom tonight oh thank you thank you yeah that's that's super kind and uh I want to meet your dad and I'm gonna tell him who I am he's really struggling he's still at that terrible phase of dementia where he knows he doesn't know any he doesn't remember anything you know every once in a while he just comes up with the funniest line though yeah he he he just yeah there's there's poetry right my my mother the other day just said time flies but you can't time fleas oh yeah you really can't that's just lovely I don't know where it came from but thank you again I said a little joke I said it's kind of a teasing joke to him the woman a couple of last visits I had before I left um this fall and I said you know I'm just teasing right like you know I hope I didn't upset you and he goes you know it's one thing about dementia it's really hard to hold a grudge that's great I've been I I'm gonna thank you on behalf of everyone attending and uh and I see that Carleen Thomas stayed with us the whole time unbelievable it's an honor pardon the swear words and I I think I'm going to see you again on Friday elder Carleen and I'll try not to f-bomb you okay but I'm uh yeah thank you and it was a real joy I believe I'm turning things over to Sarah thanks Sarah to Kendra to Kendra hi Kendra thank you for everything hello thank you so much so hard to come in at the end after you know this emotional ending that you two have left things with but uh I'll jump in anyway yep cry every day and that is so much more true since the pandemic uh my name is Kendra Sakamoto I'm one of the librarians from West Vancouver Memorial Library and thank you so much on behalf of all the North Shore libraries to Ivan and to Sheila to Carleen for that beautiful welcome um this was absolutely amazing I'm so grateful that that I got to be part of it um so grateful to the three of you for just making this evening so unbelievably amazing um thank you everyone for coming tonight if you haven't read care of all three libraries have full book club sets um if you have read it and you want it for your book club come and grab it uh also you know buy a copy at your support your local bookstore we've got lots of them across the North Shore and wherever you live um so please please read it if you haven't reread it um I listened to the audiobook version which um Ivan narrates themselves and it's amazing so even if you read it I recommend going back and listening to the audiobook it's a totally different experience you really get that performance element and it's just so moving and again thank you thank you thank you so much to everyone for coming tonight and to Ivan and Sheila and again Carleen I'm so grateful to all of you and I wish you all a really wonderful and peaceful and happy evening thanks Kendra thanks Sarah Sheila I just love you love you too and thank you for that hug me too Kendra and Sarah elder Carleen hi hi SEPCA yeah thank you elder Carleen thank you all so much have a wonderful evening take care everyone stay safe yeah be well