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This Friday, publisher and author Casia Shreyer will release a collection of short, mythological stories in Canadian settings.GERALYN WICHERS THE CARILLONAnthology explores Canadian mythology for grown- upsby GERALYN WICHERS_As a child, Casia Shreyer listened to her mother read a story about a little Inuit girl who, while playing hide and seek, encountered an ijiraq, a mischievous spirit that led children away from their villages and lost them on the tundra.Years later Shreyer, who lives in the Ste Genevieve area, found the book second-hand and read it to her own children.Shreyer began to reflect on the rising food prices up north, which were making it difficult for people to eke out a living. She thought of the vulnerable young people moving south to cities, she said, and of the people who might exploit them.Shreyer imagined the ijiraq crossing the tundra, coming across empty communities and wondering where his people had gone. The spirit who once lost people now goes looking for his lost people.This story is in Canadian Creatures, an anthology by Shreyer Ink Publishing set to release on Friday. The anthology pulls together short stories of mythology set in quintessentially Canadian settings—be it tundra spirits, lake monsters, or Alice in Wonderland reimagined in northern Manitoba.Alyssa Thiessen’s contribution to the anthology is a romantic, coming-of-age story surrounding the legend of Ogopogo, the sea monster said to roam Lake Okanagan.Thiessen, who teaches grades 9-12 at Steinbach Christian School, came up withthe idea while chaperoning a grade 11 ski trip. She brainstormed with her students as to how to make the story unique.The result is the story of a young man who, after a mystical encounter as a child, is obsessed with Lake Okanagan.Among adults she raised some eyebrows. A friend, upon hearing her idea for the story, asked “is this a collection for adults?”It is. Thiessen insists that even adults can benefit from imagination even if they, like her, don’t actually believe in Ogopogo.“I think there’s more to life than meets the eye,” Thiessen said. “The ‘what if’ is a beautiful question.”Canadian Creatures releases lune 1. Visit facebook.com/shreyerinkpublishing for more information.
Newspaper Details
Steinbach Carillon
Steinbach, Manitoba, CA
Thu, May 31, 2018
Page 8
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Kevin S.
CA 04 Sep 2020
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