Teresa McWhirter grew up in Kimberley, in the east Kootenays of B.C. She received a BA with a double major in English and Creative Writing from the University of Victoria. She has lived in Thailand and Costa Rica, and has had a variety of jobs, including teaching English in Korea, driving an ice cream truck, and scaring children at a haunted house, before touring Europe and North America with punk rock bands.

Her first novel about urban girls who drink too often, and hang out with male losers all the time, is called Some Girls Do. It was followed by a similar novel, Dirtbags, about a young woman named Spider who drifts through much the same malaise in Vancouver. The compensations of the outlaw brand of young adulthood depicted in these two novels consist mostly of loud music, drugs and parties. These are not the young, hip, irony-driven quipsters from Douglas Coupland novels, biding their time, hoping for elevation into a higher level of consumerism; McWhirter's generation of urban drifters are jumping over the edge of despair into pits of self-destruction. Romance is a luxury they can't afford.

Teresa McWhirter's fourth novel, Five Little Bitches, is derived from her experiences touring with punk rock bands. It outlines the personal histories of five female members of a band called Wet Leather, as well as the rise and inevitable demise of the group in the male-dominated world of rock 'n' roll. According to publicity materials: "Each of the women is plagued by her own unique demons, but their devotion to music and the punk lifestyle keeps them pushing on. As the band progresses, they tour Canadian, American, and European towns and cities-and all the alleys, gutters, back stages, vans, hotel rooms, highways, and airways in between. Part punk rock travelogue, Five Little Bitches is full-throttle grit-lit from a psychologically charged feminist perspective. The novel is a testimony to a generation of girls in revolt. Suck it up!"

BOOKS:

Some Girls Do (Raincoast, 2002; reprint 2013)
Dirtbags (Anvil 2007) 978-1-895636-88-8
Skank (Lorimer 2011) $9.95 978-1-55277-715-2 Young Adult novel.
Five Little Bitches (Anvil 2012) $20 978-1-897535-5

PHOTO by Jada Stark

[BCBW 2014] "Fiction"