Yukon author Joanna Lilley will give reading at UPEI on April 16

Yukon poet and fiction writer Joanna Lilley will give a public reading as part of an Atlantic Canada tour in the Faculty Lounge, SDU Main Building, UPEI on Tuesday, April 16, at 7:00 pm.

Born in the south of England, Lilley lived in Wales and Scotland before moving to Whitehorse, Yukon. Before migrating, she earned an MLitt degree in creative writing from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde.

Lilley has published three poetry collections: The Fleece Era, If There Were Roads, and, most recently, Endings. Informed by her strong ecological awareness, Endings spotlights extinct animals, taking us across continents and through the eons to give voice to the dead.

In Lilley’s debut novel, Worry Stones, Jenny, a British art historian, pursues her two passions in the high Arctic: Inuit art and a handsome geologist. But the news that her mother has suffered a stroke reels Jenny back to her old life in Scotland—the responsible daughter of parents who gave up everything to join a religious cult. Her short story collection, The Birthday Books, conjures lives as different as those of an Inuit sculptor, a Scottish sheep farmer, and a trapeze artist who wants to run away from the circus.

Lilley’s reading is sponsored by the UPEI Faculty of Arts and the Department of English, and The Bookmark. Admission is free.