Can-Am bringing award-winning Canadian author Catherine Hernandez to campus in March

The Center for Canadian-American Studies is sponsoring several events in March with award-winning Canadian author Catherine Hernandez. Her book "Scarborough" was a finalist for the Canada Reads competition last year and is the selection for this quarter’s C/AM 497E class, Western Reads Canada. Hernandez will be visiting the class virtually, and also traveling to Bellingham March 21-22, to take part in a number of events, including:

  • Screening of the film adaptation of Scarborough at the The Pickford Film Center: Tuesday, March 21, at 2:45 p.m. Info and tickets here.
     
  • Reading and discussion of the book Scarborough at Village Books: Wednesday, March 22, from 7-8 p.m. Info and tickets here.
     
  • "Life Between The Pages" book-themed dinner at Evolve Café: Tuesday, March 21 from 6-9 p.m. Info and tickets here. 

View the film adaptation of Scarborough, followed by a Q&A with the author, at the Pickford on March 21, and then dine with Catherine Hernandez that same evening at Evolve Café’s Life Between the Pages dinner! Finally join the author for a reading and discussion of her book Scarborough at Village Books.

About the book: Scarborough is a low-income, culturally diverse neighborhood east of Toronto, the fourth largest city in North America; like many inner-city communities, it suffers under the weight of poverty, drugs, crime, and urban blight. The novel employs a multitude of voices to tell the story of a tight-knit neighborhood under fire: among them, Victor, a black artist harassed by the police; Winsum, a West Indian restaurant owner struggling to keep it together; and Hina, a Muslim school worker who witnesses first-hand the impact of poverty on education.
And then there are the three kids who work to rise above a system that consistently fails them: Bing, a gay Filipino boy who lives under the shadow of his father's mental illness; Sylvie, Bing's best friend, a Native girl whose family struggles to find a permanent home to live in; and Laura, whose history of neglect by her mother is destined to repeat itself with her father.
A poignant multi-voiced novel about the troubled yet noble lives of urban warriors living in low-income neighborhoods.

"Scarborough is raw yet beautiful, disturbing yet hopeful ... It gives voice to people whose stories are often unheard, making this an important book that deserves a wide audience." -- Booklist

About the author: Catherine Hernandez (she/her) is an award-winning author and screenwriter. She is a proud queer woman who is of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian descent and married into the Navajo Nation. Her first novel, Scarborough, won the Jim Wong-Chu Award for the unpublished manuscript; was a finalist for several awards including Canada Reads 2022. She wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Scarborough, which was nominated for 11 Canadian Screen Awards and won 8 including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Her second novel, Crosshairs, was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award and made the CBC's Best Canadian Fiction, NOW Magazine's 10 Best Books, Indigo Best Book, and NBC 20 Best LGBTQ Books list of 2020. Her third novel, The Story of Us, was published on Feb. 28. She is currently working on a few television projects and her fourth novel.