A breakthrough addition to Canada’s regional literary renaissance, Down In The Valley is a sparkling collection of contemporary writing from B.C.’s fastest growing region, the magnificent Fraser Valley. As these writers reveal, the valley’s traditional agricultural, logging and fishing ways of life are under siege from Vancouver’s urban sprawl. These are poems and prose freighted with unexpected power and humility that celebrate new ways to sing the valley’s old songs and stories, renewing them for the changing generational mosaic of our times. At their core are passions, ethnicities, rural imagery, and emotions that arise from a deep understanding of the interrelatedness of things: of the mystery of good soil, the importance of weather patterns, about livestock, landforms, and from the plants and wildlife of this place. An homage to the heart of the valley community and to the old sacredness of this place shaped by the mightiest salmon river in the world, Down In The Valley is edited by Trevor Carolan and includes work by Marion Quedau, Andreas Schroeder, Crispin Elsted, as well new and veteran writers from the valley’s Indo-Canadian, Mennonite, aboriginal, and traditional communities.

Trevor Carolan is the author of a book of poetry, Celtic Highway, a travel novel, The Pillow Book of Dr. Jazz and Giving Up Poetry: With Allen Ginsberg At Hollyhock, a memoir of his acquaintance with the beloved late poet. He is a frequent contributor to The Bloomsbury Review and Shambhala Sun magazine. He is married with two children and lives in North Vancouver.