Meaghan Marie Hackinen of Kelowna wrote South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels (NeWest, 2023) about cycling with her sister from Terrace, B.C. down the Pacific Coast to the Baja Peninsula. From the damp, dense forests on Vancouver Island to the frigid Mexican deserts, the pair encounter dangerous highways, monster trucks and strange people. It's the kindness of strangers that gives Hackinen's travel story its 'inner journey' and her ability to tell an engaging story that makes her book readable.

In 2017, Hackinen did the Trans Am Bike Race and wrote about it in Shifting Gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race (NeWest $23.95). She now lives in Vancouver and continues to engage in arduous cycling trips.

She has a MFA in writing from the University of Saskatchewan.

BOOKS:

South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels (NeWest, 2019) $20.95 9781988732633

Shifting Gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race (NeWest, 2023) $23.95 9781774390801

[BCBW 2023]