the view from coffin ridge:
A childhood exhumed
Published Spring of 2024
Her non-fiction piece Survivor’s Guilt was long-listed for the 2023 CBC Non-Fiction Prize, from over 2300 entries across Canada. Five words to describe Survivor’s Guilt: Women Murdered Survivor Bears Witness.
Words from the Author about her story’s inspiration:
”Survivor’s Guilt was first inspired by one murdered woman’s untold story, and how the intersection of her murder and my life shook an ancient memory loose in me. For years I had kept the experience of my own close brush with murder buried beneath the protective gauze of forgetting. That day, in the dark hall where Debra died, the buried secret of the child bride I had once been began to creep out from the chasm between before and after, and the realization I had escaped Debra’s fate began to penetrate my carefully constructed life. From that time forward whenever I heard of a woman who was murdered by her intimate partner I experienced the uncomfortable and complicated feelings of survivor’s guilt: relief it had been them instead of me, guilt at my survival. To research and write about victims of femicide, to bring their stories to light, is my way to honour the fallen women, to correct the narratives told of murders justified, of women who “deserved it”. Survivor’s Guilt was also my way to write my younger self back home.”
The View From Coffin Ridge: A Childhood Exhumed is Girl Interrupted meets the Liar’s Club at the Glass Castle.
Published in Spring of 2024 by The Ginger Press in Owen Sound. See more about The Ginger Press below. Copies available now!
What’s In A Smile was shortlisted for the 2018 Geist Postcard Contest.
The Subjective Experience of Men Who Murder Their Intimate Partners, was Gwen’s final thesis completed as part of her Masters of Social Work degree.
The Ginger Press
Publisher Spotlight
Maryann Thomas, owner of the Ginger Press, has been publishing books since 1987. She has deliberately concentrated on local writers who have demonstrated the potential to inform, challenge and entertain a larger audience. The Ginger Press publishes books of historical, natural, cultural, and contemporary aspects of life in the Grey-Bruce community. The regional emphasis does not limit Ginger Press’s audience, but extends it to include enthusiastic readers, booksellers, libraries, and reviewers from across Canada and the world. Maryann has never received public funding or grants for her publishing work. She is a firm believer in publishing books which the community supports, rather than books which satisfy the changing criteria of granting agencies.
The Ginger Press Bookshop, one of Canada’s oldest independent bookshops, was established in 1978 as a small mail order business. It has outgrown two locations and is now located in downtown Owen Sound. The Ginger Press is an exuberant centre in a thriving literary and creative community. Readers and writers gather in this comfortable environment to exchange ideas, discuss their latest projects, and connect over books.
Maryann and the Ginger Press community have provided Gwen with the one-on-one relationship which was necessary to tell her story in The View From Coffin Ridge: A Childhood Exhumed. Gwen is an avid reader as well as a writer and as such supports independent bookstores. Without them so many of our stories would be lost.
