Kasia Van Schaik 

Balancing an ambivalent relationship to the past, and fear and hope for the future, Kasia Van Schaik's portraits of female interiority, immigrant identity, dislocation, and desire trace the transitions from girlhood to adulthood.

Kasia Van Schaik’s debut story collection follows the journey of Charlotte Ferrier, a child of divorce raised by a single mother in a small town in British Columbia after moving from South Africa. Mother and daughter wait out the end of a bad year in a Mexican hotel; a friendship is tested as forest fires demolish Charlotte’s town; a childhood friend disappears while travelling through Europe; and a girl on the beach examines the memories of dying jellyfish. The stories traverse the most intimate and transforming moments of female experience in a world threatened by ecological crisis.