Way Out West Fest

And the winner of our Valentine’s Day Giveaway is Tara McKenzie Fotos. Thank you to everyone who entered and especially to our sponsors, Deane House, @Eau Claire Distillery, Alberta Whisky Cake and @Cody & Sioux.

Don’t forget to enter our Valentines Day Dinner giveaway - a delicious Beef Wellington prepared by our friends @deanehouseyyc along with a cocktail kit with @eauclairecraft gin, an @alberta_whisky_cake for desert, topped up with two tees and a candle from @codyandsioux Find the original post and tag a friend there!

This week’s #wowfestbookreview by Way Out West Fest producer, Kamla McGonigal, concerns a black mark on the history of the West in Canada. A story of residential schools, and a chronicle of the journeys of its survivors to come to terms with the injustices and pain of their pasts, and find a way forward in our modern West. Five Little Indians by Michelle Good This novel by Canadian writer, Michelle Good was awarded the 2018 HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction and w...as a finalist for both the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Although this book is listed as a work of fiction, the content is based on the author’s extensive experiences and research. It’s a stunning and brutal work of art. Good is a writer of Cree ancestry and a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. She obtained a law degree and an MFA in Creative Writing after spending 30 years working with indigenous communities and organizations. Good currently lives in southcentral British Columbia. In this novel the author compassionately traces the lives of five former residential school survivors. They were very young children when they were uprooted from their family homes and forced to attend this school. Their individual experiences, including how each deals with confinement, trauma and despair, shed a powerful light on the longstanding effects childhood adverse events have on the human psyche, later dramatically influencing their actions and outcomes. The book begins during the 1960s, with the story of one of the survivors. The next chapter introduces the reader to another of the ‘five little Indians’. The stories of the other three are then also shared in upcoming chapters, as is the criss-crossing of their lifelong intertwining lives. CONTINUED IN COMMENTS!

THE WAY OUT WEST BOOK RECOMMEND #1 Welcome to the #wowfestbookreview where the WOW Fest team intends to introduce you to our personal collection of books of the West. Whether titles we’re currently crushing on, or picks from our own intimate libraries, we promise you will be inspired, entertained and educated through this curated selection, so read on! This week’s review, by Way Out West Fest founder, Ingrid Schulz, is devoted to one of the most iconic characters of the We...Continue reading

We’re dropping a new feature tomorrow you’re gonna love. Follow us for our kickoff of the #wowfestbookreview where we’ll introduce you to our favourite books of the West. Stay tuned!