Danceland Diary

“Maybe happiness just takes practice. I feel my face lift from grief into the unfamiliar shape of happiness. Happiness seems attainable. Concentrate on that.”

Luka and her sister Connie are the inheritors of a secretive and disturbing family history going back three generations to the disappearance of their great-grandfather. Set in the seductive beauty of rural Saskatchewan with a backdrop of the drug-fueled Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and the horrific pig farm murders, Luka’s quest for her mother, and for peace and love, is a disquieting, moving, and thoroughly engaging examination of intergenerational trauma, family ties, and forgiveness.

Danceland Diary

“Maybe happiness just takes practice. I feel my face lift from grief into the unfamiliar shape of happiness. Happiness seems attainable. Concentrate on that.”

Luka and her sister Connie are the inheritors of a secretive and disturbing family history going back three generations to the disappearance of their great-grandfather. Set in the seductive beauty of rural Saskatchewan with a backdrop of the drug-fueled Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and the horrific pig farm murders, Luka’s quest for her mother, and for peace and love, is a disquieting, moving, and thoroughly engaging examination of intergenerational trauma, family ties, and forgiveness.

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Among the Untamed

By turns angry, powerful, visceral, evocative, and ultimately hopeful, this modern retelling of Joan of Arc in linked poems casts her as a prairie-born Jeanne Dark.

Wildness Rushing In - Book Cover

Wildness Rushing In

In this amazing first collection, a new and original voice sparks with intelligence in its full-tilt explorations of nature, solitude, joy, loss, and love.

What Can't be Undone - Book Cover

What Can’t Be Undone

These exquisitely crafted stories travel across the rolling prairies, unforgiving mountain ranges, and coastal highways of Western Canada, shining a light on the complexities of life.

Bread & Water

When chef and writer dee Hobsbawn-Smith left the city for rural life on a farm in Saskatchewan, she planned to replace cooking and teaching with poetry and prose. But—as begin the best stories—her next adventure didn’t quite work that way.

“Bread & Water is an emotionally arresting, beautifully written series of essays.”

~ Jurors’ Citation, Saskatchewan Book Awards, University of Saskatchewan President’s Office Nonfiction Award

“Food is a wonderful agent for storytelling... and Bread & Water demonstrates this brilliantly.”

~ Sarah Ramsey, starred review, Quill & Quire

“[Bread & Water is] An amazing feast... riveting... eloquent.”

~ Patricia D. Robertson, Winnipeg Free Press

“[Bread & Water is a] sensuous experience; she brings her poet’s eye and ear to everything within her purview.”

~ Professor emerita Kathleen Wall, Blue Duets

“A deep love of the art of cooking that includes the language of fine dining (cassoulet, confit) even if the lamb was raised in Olds and she picked the rhubarb herself... she impressively manages this collision of worlds with a wholesome, approachable style.”

~ Megan Clark, Alberta Views

“These finely focussed poems [in Wildness Rushing In] invite us into a sensuous and emotionally rich landscape.”

~ Don McKay, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize

“The writing [in Wildness Rushing In] is honed and textured, the senses so alive that you can practically taste the language. There are moments of brilliance rare in a first book.”

~ Jurors’ Citation, Saskatchewan Book Awards

“dee Hobsbawn-Smith’s stories [in What Can’t Be Undone] are written with a poetic edge. Her descriptions, particularly western landscapes, are often luxurious, lending themselves a kind of nuanced impression, a delicate fingerprint on the reader’s mind. "

~ Lee Kvern, Alberta Views

“[Foodshed is] A rich encyclopedia of facts, farm-gate lore and original recipes... a politically engaging narrative in which Hobsbawn-Smith articulates the challenges and joys faced by small-scale producers... don’ t let the alphabet theme fool you. This is no tame nursery rhyme; it is a locavore call to arms.”

~ P.D. Robertson, The Globe & Mail

Taste Canada Book Awards Finalist
Taste Canada Book Awards Finalist

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