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General News · 6th August 2022
GinaT CIMAS
Book Launch of two Cortes Island writers: Katie Welch, Mad Honey, and Brian Hayden, The Eyes of the Leopard.

Thursday, August 11, 7:30 p.m., Marnie's Books Courtyard.
Bring your folding chair!

Event sponsored by Marnie's Books and Cortes Island Museum.

The Eyes of the Leopard is an adventure story of a boy living 20,000 years ago in the Old Stone Age of France—the age when caves were painted and people hunted mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, cave bears, and cave lions. But this book is much more than an adventure story. Based on Brian’s lifetime experience working with and studying about hunting and gathering societies, long before there was any farming, the book recreates the many facets of what life, culture, and society was like 20,000 years ago in southwestern France. It is definitely not just for young teens.

Mad Honey: When Beck Wise vanished, his girlfriend Melissa Makepeace poured herself into caring for the family farm, silently absorbing yet another man disappearing from her life. But when Beck reappears three months later, thin, pale, with no idea what day it is and filled with memories of being bees, a series of layered mysteries begins to unravel. What had happened to Beck? Where did her father go? How can she keep the farm together? With gorgeous descriptions, deft characterizations and a page-turning plot, Mad Honey immerses the reader in a search for truth bounded by the everyday magic of beekeeping, of family and of finding peace, all while asking how much we really understand the natural world.

Katie Welch writes fiction and teaches music in Kamloops, B.C., on the traditional, unceded territory of the Secwepemc people. Her short stories have been published in EVENT Magazine, Prairie Fire, The Antigonish Review, The Temz Review, The Quarantine Review, and elsewhere. She was first runner-up in UBCO’s 2019 Short Story Contest, and her story “Poisoned Apple” was chosen as Pick-of-the-Week by Longform Fiction.
Katie holds a BA in English Literature from the University of Toronto (1990). Her daughters, Olivia and Heather Saya, share her passion for nature and outdoor recreation. Katie loves to cycle, hike and cross-country ski with her husband, Will Stinson, and they are creating a remote home on Cortes Island.

Dr. Brian Hayden is an archaeologist who has conducted research on four continents including 30 years of working with Indigenous groups in British Columbia and Australia. His numerous publications include works on prehistoric religion and cave art. He is a Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University and lives on Cortes Island
Katie Welch
Katie Welch
Brian Hayden
Brian Hayden