Federation of BC Writers - Off the Page Program

Deanna Kawatski, author of best-selling Wilderness Mother and Clara and Me, a BC Book Prize nominee, is a naturalist living on Garland Gracesprings Farm in the North Shuswap.

She has travelled extensively and spent three years living in Europe in the 1970s. Deanna met George Ryga in 1974 and he became her mentor. In 1978 she worked as forestry lookout attendant in Northern BC where she met her hermit husband. For the next thirteen years she led the life of a pioneering mother in the wilderness. At the same time she wrote feature articles for magazines such as Harrowsmith, Country Journal, Canadian Gardening, and Mother Earth News. Her life has been the subject of two CBC documentaries; one aired in 1990 and the other broadcast in 2005 and 2006. Deanna's poetry and short stories have appeared in various anthologies including most recently, Imagining British Columbia, a Federation of BC Writers book published by Anvil Press. Deanna served as regional representative for the Federation of BC Writers from 2000 to 2002. She also worked as writer-in-resident at the Ryga Centre in 2002. Deanna has given many reading and writing workshops for the past fourteen years. Both Wilderness Mother and Clara and Me were Book-of-the-Month Club selections.

Publications (Selected)

Books

Stalking the Wild Heart. Gracesprings Collective, 2010. Fiction.

Clara and Me. Whitecap Books, 1996. Literary nonfiction. Hubert Evans Award nominee and Book-of-the-Month Club selection.

Wilderness Mother. New York: Lyons Press, Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1994. Literary nonfiction. A bestseller and Book-of-the-Month club selection.

Bird, Bubble and Stream. Fiddlehead Press, 1980. Book of poetry.

Editor and Contributor

A Pocketful of Muse. Federation of BC Writers, 2001. A chapbook of regional writing.

Magazine Articles (Selected)

"In Retreat at Garland Gracesprings Farm." Wordworks, 2006.

"Our Wilderness Homestead Revisited." Mother Earth News (20th Anniversary Issue), 2003.

"Shuswap Diary." Mother Earth News Magazine, 1995-96. Feature article series.

"Northern Exposure." Canadian Gardening, 1992.

"The Garden at Natty Creek." Country Journal, 1991. Feature article series.

"Up Natty Creek." Harrowsmith, 1989.

"Living the Dream." Outdoor Canada, 1987; Mother Earth News 1991.

Anthologies

"The Ghost Wharf." Imagining British Columbia. Anvil Press, 2008.

"Avalanche and the Chicken Lady." How I Learned to Speak Dog. Douglas & McIntyre, 1995.

"Natty Creek Garden Journal." North Coast Collected. Caitlin Press, 1994.