In a weaving of tales, generations, and miles traveled, Salmon Arm author Deanna Barnhardt Kawatski takes her readers on the road in her new book Burning Man, Slaying Dragon. Kawatski tells her tale of wanderlust across generations at an author reading on Tuesday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the Nelson Public Library.
As a headstrong young woman, Kawatski leaves her Shuswap home seeking meaning and enlightenment in an astounding and sometimes dangerous quest that takes her overland from Europe to India, only to find herself at home — in more ways than one. Decades later, Kawatski heads out again, this time with her own headstrong daughter Natalia. The destination is the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, but the journey is much more than the distance traveled as Kawatski recounts her experiences and mother and daughter navigate the present, and look to the future.
“In Burning Man, Slaying Dragon, Deanna Barnhardt Kawatski effortlessly weaves together these two stories of past and present in a highly descriptive and page-turning style that will have you reaching for your World Atlas in wonderment,” says CBC Radio host and author Grant Lawrence. “Throughout the adventure the author manages to face her own inner fears while under constant threat of staggering sexism, highly questionable transportation, murderous nomads, engulfing sand storms, transformative drugs, and elusive love.”
Kawatski is also the author of the best-selling memoir, Wilderness Mother (Lyons & Burford, New York) and the BC Book Prize-nominated Clara and Me, (Whitecap Books), plus the novel Stalking the Wild Heart (Gracesprings Collective). Her roots in the north Shuswap go back a hundred years, where she is a director of the Shuswap Writers’ Festival.
The author appears with assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts through the Writers’ Union of Canada.