The writing and relations between Syilx women and settler women who lived in the Okanagan and Similkameen is the focus of this presentation called “Okanagan Women’s Voices: Syilx and Settler Writing and Relations, 1870s-1960s.”

A collaborative work, this anthology brings together memoirs, newspaper and other essays, poetry, fiction, letters, and storytelling of Syilx and settler women, much of it discovered in local archives and not previously published. It provides a gender-specific perspective on the contact history of this region. Janet discuss how this compilation speaks to the many changes in the way BC history has been studied in recent decades in its inclusion of diverse voices.

Janet MacArthur is one of three editors and contributors to Okanagan Women’s Voices. She has published on Renaissance poetry, women’s literature, autobiography, postcolonial literature, and trauma narratives. At present, she is working on a book about Princeton settler Susan Allison’s unpublished writing. She is an Associate Professor Emerita of English at UBC Okanagan.