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Join BC author Katie Welch and Paris, Ontario author James Cairns in Ottawa to celebrate the release of their new books from Wolsak & Wynn! About CBC Short Story Prize Finalist and beloved BC author Katie Welch’s highly-anticipated new novel, Ladder to Heaven:
This is a gripping and gorgeous speculative story of addiction and resilience, as well as alienation from a bewildering, rapidly-changing world that simultaneously highlights the non-centrality of humans on our planet.
In 2045 an earthquake ravages the Pacific Coast of North America and the world shifts. Suddenly people and animals can understand each other, while the chaos of climate change combines with the destruction of the earthquake in terrifying ways. Inland, where she should be safe, Del Samara finds her life spiraling out control. Struggling with addiction and with her ranch in ashes around her, Del decides her family would be better off without her. Leaving her daughters behind, she retreats to her father’s fishing cabin with her dog Manx. When she emerges three years later, she finds the world since the earthquake had become a very different place and she begins a dangerous journey to Vancouver Island to find her family and, perhaps, find peace.
About Katie Welch:
Katie Welch lives in Kamloops and on Cortes Island, BC. Her debut novel MAD HONEY was nominated for the 2023 OLA Evergreen Prize. She is a two-time alumnus of the Banff Centre and was a finalist for the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize.
James Cairns’s acclaimed essay collection, In Crisis, On Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times (Wolsak & Wynn, 2025)
In 2022, the Collins Dictionary announced that its word of the year was “permacrisis,” which it defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events.” Have we reached a breaking point, arrived at the moment of truth? If so, what now? If not, why do so many people say we’re living through a period of unprecedented crises?
Drawing on social research, pop culture and literature, as well as on his experience as an activist, father and teacher, James Cairns explores the ecological crisis, Trump's return to power amid the so-called crisis of democracy, his own struggle with addiction and other moments of truth facing us today. In a series of insightful essays that move deftly between personal, theoretical and historical approaches he considers not only what makes something a crisis, but also how to navigate the effect of these destabilizing times on ourselves, on our families and on the world.
About James Cairns:
James Cairns lives with his family in Paris, Ontario, on territory that the Haldimand Treaty of 1784 recognizes as belonging to the Six Nations of the Grand River in perpetuity. He is a professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies, Law and Social Justice at Wilfrid Laurier University, where his courses and research focus on political theory and social movements. James is a staff writer at the Hamilton Review of Books, and the community relations director for the Paris-based Riverside Reading Series. James has published three books with the University of Toronto Press, most recently, The Myth of the Age of Entitlement: Millennials, Austerity, and Hope (2017), as well as numerous essays in periodicals such as Canadian Notes & Queries, the Montreal Review of Books, Briarpatch, TOPIA, Rethinking Marxism and the Journal of Canadian Studies. James’ essay “My Struggle and My Struggle,” originally published in CNQ, appeared in Biblioasis’s Best Canadian Essays, 2025 anthology.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Perfect Books Ottawa, 258A Elgin Street,Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
