Tessa McWatt

Every day, we hear about and experience griefs, large and small, in our families, friendships, communities, and worldwide. The grief of a loved one passing. The grief of a way of life ceasing to exist. The grief of global pandemic, war, climate collapse. In The Snag, the acclaimed author of Shame On Me, Tessa McWatt, takes on personal and collective grief, and climate change, in her much-anticipated second nonfiction book. As her mother’s dementia advances and it becomes apparent that she can no longer live independently, Tessa considers griefs personal and political, and finds solace in trees. She asks: How do we grieve? And: What can we learn from nature and those whose communities are rooted in nature about how to grieve — and how to live? From the newest seedling, to the oldest snag in the forest, there is meaning to be found in every stage of a tree’s life, all of which contribute to a thriving forest community; it is in this metaphor that Tessa begins to find answers to her questions about how to live (for each other), how to grieve (radically), and how to die (with love and connection). The Snag is an essential book about living and dancing and singing and praying, even in the face of unimaginable sadness, and in this way, growing together and supporting one another, like the trees in the forest.

In her memoir The Snag, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Shame on Me, Tessa McWatt, takes on personal and collective grief, and the solace and inspiration to be found in connecting with nature--and each other. Every day, we hear about and experience griefs, large and small, in our families, friendships, communities, and worldwide. The grief of a loved one passing. The grief of a way of life ceasing to exist. The grief of global pandemic, war, climate collapse. As her mother's dementia advances and she can no longer live independently, Tessa McWatt confronts personal and political losses, and finds herself wandering in a forest asking, how do we grieve? And what can we learn from nature and those whose communities are rooted in nature about not only how to grieve but also how to live? From the newest seedling to the oldest snag in the forest, there is meaning to be found in every stage of a tree's life, all of which contribute to a thriving forest community. In this forest thinking, Tessa begins to find answers to her questions about how to live (for each other), how to grieve (radically), and how to die (with love and connection). The Snag is an essential book about living and dancing and singing and praying, even in the face of unimaginable sadness, and in this way, growing together and supporting one another, like the trees in the forest.

Four strangers from around the world arrive in India for a wedding. Together, they climb a mountain — but will they see the same thing from the top? Londoner Reema, who left India before she could speak, is searching for a sign that will help her make a life-changing decision. In pensioner Jackson’s suitcase is something he must let go of, but is he strong enough? Together with two unlikely companions, they take a road trip up a mountain deep in the Himalayas, heading for the snow line, where the ice begins. But even standing in the same place, surrounded by magnificent views, they see things differently. As they ascend higher and higher, they must learn to cross the lines that divide them.

Tessa McWatt's breathtaking new novel explores love and endurance in the face of change and violence, and how people find wholeness and belonging when their own identities feel shattered. Northern India, 2009. Four travellers disembark from the Dhauladhar Express at the Pathankot train station, having arrived in Punjab to attend a wedding. Yosh, 30, a yoga teacher from Vancouver; Monica, 30, the bride's cousin from Toronto; Reema, 26, the bride's childhood friend, a mixed-heritage Londoner in search of her Indianness; and Jackson, 86, who is returning to India after a long hiatus in Boston, and who carries with him a small tea canister in which he has placed his wife Amelia's ashes. As they gather with other guests at the traditional Indian wedding, Jackson and Reema develop a reluctant, unlikely friendship that grows through mutual need and a slowly developing trust, and together with Yosh and Monica, they embark on a post-wedding journey to the Himalayas, seeking the perfect place to scatter Amelia's ashes. As they travel together, secrets are revealed, and each of them is opened up to more questions than answers. These intergenerational and intercultural relationships are a meeting of the past and the future, a reconciliation of past wrongs and a possibility that the future might be less violent, less selfish, less segregated. But can it be?

Old and young. White and brown. Male and female. British. Indian. Other. Four strangers from around the world arrive in India for a wedding. Together, they climb a mountain — but will they see the same thing from the top? Londoner Reema, who left India before she could speak, is searching for a sign that will help her make a life-changing decision. In pensioner Jackson’s suitcase is something he must let go of, but is he strong enough? Together with two unlikely companions, they take a road trip up a mountain deep in the Himalayas, heading for the snow line — the place where the ice begins. But even standing in the same place, surrounded by magnificent views, they see things differently. As they ascend higher and higher, they must learn to cross the lines that divide them.

NON-FICTION WINNER OF THE OCM BOCAS PRIZE FOR CARIBBEAN LITERATURE AND A FINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS’ TRUST PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION What does it mean to belong? All her life, Tessa McWatt has been asked, ‘What are you?’ Born in Guyana to a family with Scottish, African, French, Chinese, Indian, Portuguese, and Native American heritage, she grew up in a white suburb, out of place, longing to fit in. As an adult, she moved to the UK, still pursued by questions about her identity. In this deeply personal reckoning with race and belonging, Tessa interweaves her own experiences as a mixed-race woman with a stark and unvarnished history of slavery and indenture, as well as observations on literature and popular culture. This powerful memoir of being mixed race in a predominantly white society is a necessary exploration of who and what we truly are.

This stunning picture-book imagining of artist Agnes Martin’s childhood gives readers a glimpse into the life and work of one of the most esteemed abstract painters of the twentieth century. Agnes Martin was born on the Canadian prairies in the early twentieth century. In this imagining of her childhood from acclaimed author Tessa McWatt, Agnes spends her days surrounded by wheat fields, where her grandfather encourages her to draw what she sees and feels around her: the straight horizon, the feeling of the sun, the movement of birds’ wings and the shapes she sees in the wheat. One day, Agnes’s family moves to a house in a big city. The straight horizon and wheat fields are gone, but Agnes continues to draw what she sees and feels around her. No one except her grandfather understands what she is trying to capture — not her mother, who asks, “Where are you, Agnes?” when she sees her daughter engrossed in her drawing; nor her siblings, who think her art is ugly. Still, Agnes keeps trying to capture what she sees inside her mind. Agnes Martin grew up to become a famous abstract expressionist artist. Tessa McWatt has written a beautiful story of Agnes’s childhood and how it might have shaped her adult work. Zuzanna Celej’s watercolors adeptly capture Agnes’s world, including hints of the grid paintings that she was later known for, against the backdrop of prairie and city landscapes. Includes an author’s note with more information about Agnes Martin’s life and the inspiration behind this story. Key Text Features author's note art history Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.7 Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.

FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD FOR NON-FICTION Interrogating our ideas of race through the lens of her own multi-racial identity, critically acclaimed novelist Tessa McWatt turns her eye on herself, her body and this world in a powerful new work of non-fiction. Tessa McWatt has been called Susie Wong, Pocahontas and "black bitch," and has been judged not black enough by people who assume she straightens her hair. Now, through a close examination of her own body--nose, lips, hair, skin, eyes, ass, bones and blood--which holds up a mirror to the way culture reads all bodies, she asks why we persist in thinking in terms of race today when racism is killing us. Her grandmother's family fled southern China for British Guiana after her great uncle was shot in his own dentist's chair during the First Sino-Japanese War. McWatt is made of this woman and more: those who arrived in British Guiana from India as indentured labour and those who were brought from Africa as cargo to work on the sugar plantations; colonists and those whom colonialism displaced. How do you tick a box on a census form or job application when your ancestry is Scottish, English, French, Portuguese, Indian, Amerindian, African and Chinese? How do you finally answer a question first posed to you in grade school: "What are you?" And where do you find a sense of belonging in a supposedly "post-racial" world where shadism, fear of blackness, identity politics and call-out culture vie with each other noisily, relentlessly and still lethally? Shame on Me is a personal and powerful exploration of history and identity, colour and desire from a writer who, having been plagued with confusion about her race all her life, has at last found kinship and solidarity in story.

Hinterland is a quarterly, print and digital magazine dedicated to creative non-fiction. Hinterland's fourth issue celebrates the art of a beautifully turned piece of flash writing, with our Flash Non-Fiction Special: 40 pages of the best bite-sized writing around. Mark Cocker leads with a piece on the army ant, others consider topics as varied as migrant youth, New York through the decades, the troubling life of pets, inter-racial relationships, and the fall of dictators. Inside a stunning cover, created exclusively for Hinterland by artist Mia Hague, is an outstanding line-up of new creative non-fiction plus all our great regular features, including a beautiful photo essay by Lily Bungay and an interview with Tessa McWatt.

‘I think I have found the way to talk to her in the present. The past takes too much language.’So much is taken for granted in a long marriage, so much is relied upon, resented, and never spoken of. When Anna begins to mangle her sentences as a result of a brain aneurysm that could kill her at any moment, her husband Mike uses his talent as a graphic artist to draw his way closer to his wife. Trying to communicate with her, and himself too, through signs and symbols, he wants to show his wife that she has been his entire universe. But Mike is deeply flawed, hovering on the knife-edge of a confession, he selfishly looks to the woman he loves for absolution. Not knowing how much time they have left together and incoherent with guilt, will he finally confess all the ways in which he rebelled against her power over him, the way he betrayed her?

Set in London, Toronto and Guyana, this title conveys secrets that usually remain untold - those of desire, loss, identity, and of love lost and found.

Beatrice dreams of being discovered in Hollywood. And, when her Aunt Mavis leaves her enough money to kick off Guyana's dust and fly to foreign places, it's to California she plans to go. But, her beloved Aunt knew her fantasizing teenage niece better than Beatrice knows herself, and California is the one place she may not visit. Instead, Beatrice finds herself on an increasingly incredible trip around the world, discovering both the strange and the familiar wherever she goes, Miami, Mexico City, London, Paris, Beijing, Delhi or Nairobi.