Although Renate Thomas immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1957 at the age of four, it wasn't until 2005 that she became a Canadian citizen. By then she had worked at various jobs in the lumber industry, planted trees and driven an eighty-ton truck for a mining company.

She married and had two children but the marriage didn't last and a car accident robbed her of a child (her eldest, a son). She found solace by picking fiddlehead greens in the forests around Prince George. Later she moved to Terrace and worked for the school board for ten years. She now resides in Chilliwack, the town where she spent most of her childhood.

Her first published book of poetry (Granville Island $16.95) is about her healing journey after the loss of her son.

BOOKS

Somewhere in the Night (Granville Island Publishing, 2014) $16.95 978-1-926991-31-3

[BCBW 2014]