"According to her publisher's note, Bernice Friesen divides her time between Saskatoon and Hornby Island which, judging from these poems, should be renamed Horny Island." -- Gary Geddes

Bernice Friesen of Hornby Island was born in rural Saskatchewan and has degrees in visual art and education from the University of Saskatchewan. Her lively collection Sex, Death & Naked Men (Coteau $8.95) opens with a poem about God's penis and concludes with a photo of the author in a wedding dress. Her young-adult novel The Seasons are Horses (Thistledown, 1995) was a finalist for two Saskatchewan Book Awards. The Book of Beasts (Coteau 2007) is the coming of age story of Seamus (James) Wilberforce Young, a half-English and half-Irish boy who is taken to his mother's Irish village in 1965 after her mother's lengthy alienation from her family. Recently Seamus' sister was killed in a car accident; and his mother soon decides to leave her husband. At his grandmother's bidding, James pursues the priesthood only to undergo a loss of faith. The Book of Beasts won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction and was included in the Globe and Mail's Top 100 Books of 2007.

BOOKS:

The Book of Beasts (Coteau, 2007) $21.00 978-1-55050-387-1
Sex, Death, and Naked Men. Regina: Coteau Books, 1998.
The Seasons are Horses. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: Thistledown Press, 1995.

AWARDS:

Second Prize, Sterling Writing Awards, poetry, 1998.
Runner-up, League of Canadian Poets National Poetry Contest, 1997.
Shortlisted, CBC Radio Canadian Literary Awards, for "Aviatrix," 1997.
Vicky Metcalf Award, Canadian Authors Association, for best short story: "The Seasons are Horses," 1996.
Shortlisted, Tilden Canadian Literary Awards for Non-fiction manuscript: "Beijing in Four Days," 1996.

[BCBW 2008] "Poetry" "Kidlit"