Celebrating the depth and diversity of BC publishing
On Saturday, September 9th at 6:00pm, join Massy Arts Society, Massy Books, and Knopf Canada for the launch of Helen Knott’s Becoming a Matriarch with host Troy Sebastian.
“Becoming a Matriarch is a feast of remarkable, colourful, deep and profoundly raw storytelling. Helen Knott is one of the greatest Indigenous literary artists of our time.” —Brandi Morin, author of Our Voice of Fire: A Memoir of a Warrior Rising.
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Registration is free/by donation, open to all and required for entrance.
Purchase Becoming a Matriarch at Massy Books in advance or in person at the event.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Museum of Vancouver’s Joyce Walley Room, 1100 Chestnut St, Vancouver, BC.
Registrants can enjoy free admission to the museum all day, at any time before the event [10am to 6pm]. Just show your ticket to the event at the front desk. To see which exhibitions are currently on view, check out this link: https://museumofvancouver.ca/current-exhibitions
Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
Parking & Directions
The Museum of Vancouver website has detailed descriptions of how to reach the museum by bus, ferry, on foot or by car. Note that the MOV parking lot is an Easy park lot with Easy park rates and is strictly monitored by Easypark. A parking violation ticket can cost $80!
Please visit their site to find out how best to arrive.
About The Book:
Becoming a Matriarch (Knopf Canada, 2023)
When matriarchs begin to disappear, there is a choice to either step into the places they left behind, or to craft a new space.
Helen Knott’s debut memoir, In My Own Moccasins, wowed reviewers, award juries, and readers alike with its profoundly honest and moving account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, resilience, and survival. Now, in her highly anticipated second book, Knott returns with a chronicle of grief, love, and legacy.
Having lost both her mom and grandmother in just over six months, forced to navigate the fine lines between matriarchy, martyrdom, and codependency, Knott realizes she must let go, not just of the women who raised her, but of the woman she thought she was.
Woven into the pages are themes of mourning, sobriety through loss, and generational dreaming. Becoming a Matriarch is charted with poetic insights, sass, humour, and heart, taking the reader over the rivers and mountains of Dane Zaa territory in Northeastern British Columbia, along the cobbled streets of Antigua, Guatemala, and straight to the heart of what matriarchy truly means. This is a journey through pain, on the way to becoming.
About the author:
Helen Knott is a Dane Zaa, Cree, Metis and mixed Euro-descent woman from Prophet River First Nations living in Fort St. John, B.C. She is the author of the nationally best-selling book, In My Own Moccasins. Her second book, Becoming a Matriarch, has been released through Knopf Doubleday Publishing. Helen has a bachelor’s degree in social work and has worked in advocacy and wellness with Indigenous communities for almost a decade. Helen has pieces published ranging from poetry to academic articles that focus on the connection between violence against Indigenous lands and violence against Indigenous bodies. She is currently taking time to work on her third book, a fiction, whose story will be rooted in her peoples territory.
About the host:
Troy Sebastian |nupqu ʔak·ǂam̓ is a writer from the Ktunaxa community of ʔaq̓am. He is a doctoral student, Vanier Scholar and Sessional Instructor in the University of Victoria’s Department of Writing. His story tax niʔ pikak̓— a long time ago- was longlisted for the 2018 CBC Short Story Prize and the 2019 Writers’ Trust Journey Prize. In 2020 he was selected as a Writer’s Trust Rising Star by Lynn Coady and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. His story The Mission won the 2022 National Magazine Award Gold Prize for Fiction. His writing has appeared in Brick, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and The Walrus. He is represented by Rachel Letofsky at CookeMcDermid.