Author crafts a tale of mother’s grief, strength

Mark your calendar for Sept. 22, this year’s date for The Word On The Street — the Lethbridge Public Library’s annual literary festival. This year will mark its eighth year, and promises another great lineup of authors, panel discussions, demonstrations and workshops, live music, activities, a marketplace, and food trucks. This year we also welcome French Canadian, Métis and Cree author Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau.

As a diverse artist, Bordeleau is known by many for her paintings and large sculptures seen throughout the world. In 2006, she won the Award of Excellence in Regional Creation from the Quebec Council of Arts and Letters. As a writer, she has won the Télé-Québec mention for poetry, and in 2012 the Abitibi-Témiscamingue Literary Prize, for her poetry as well.

Bordeleau’s second and latest novel, “Winter Child,” was initially released in 2014, but was only translated into English last year. This poetic short story begins one late September evening, as the first snowflakes of the year fall, for this is when the winter child is born. The reader then witnesses again year after year, the winter child narrowly avoiding his death. But his mother knows: “he would be her wound, she would have to battle to keep him with her, to defend him against the worst of all enemies.”

Readers will be drawn to Bordeleau’s beautifully poetic tone, as she uses the Winter Child as a tale of reflection on grief, life, and a mother’s strength to come back after tremendous suffering.

Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau will be visiting the Lethbridge Public Library on Sept. 22 as part of The Word On The Street. The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information on this year’s festival, visit

thewordonthestreet.ca/lethbridge.