Cariboo author Donna Milner is hoping the launch of her latest book, A Place Called Sorry, will be a community event.
“This town has been so great in supporting my books and I want this party to be like an old fashioned coffee house atmosphere where people feel they can join in,” Milner said.
She invites everyone to the launch taking place at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 1 at the Tourism Discovery Centre.
“We are going to have an open mic where people can sing and read some poetry or prose.”
Describing A Place Called Sorry as a family story, Milner said it intersects two eras.
“The two time frames are the grandfather’s journal and his grandchild’s experience during the 1930s leading up to the First World War.”
During the Civil War the grandfather and his father left to escape. They came up through Fort Victoria to work on the road going in from Bute Inlet to the gold fields.
“I don’t want to divulge too much more because it gives stuff away,” Milner said, noting she heard about the Bute Inlet incident, also known as the Chilcotin War, did some research and went from there.
It is hard to pinpoint what inspires her to write her books, she chuckled.
“You don’t even know. You just sit down, you have a character and you follow him or her and they take you somewhere. That’s basically what happened with this one.”
She worked on the book for at least two years she said, noting it is historical fiction involving an event in B.C.’s history.
Milner will share the limelight at the launch with her son, Aaron Cully Drake, who will read from his literary debut, Do You Think This is Strange?
The story follows the journey of Freddy, an autistic teenager.
When Freddy was seven years old his mother walked him to the train, sat him on a bench, kissed his forehead and disappeared from his life.
Ten years later Freddy is struggling to get through his last year of high school.
Drake has written for newspapers and magazines and is a former reporter and editor.
He lives in Vancouver with his wife, son, and autistic daughter.