Paula Dunning

Paula Dunning has authored two books. They are available at The Artesian at 514 Queen St. downtown Sault Ste. Marie, Canada.

Shifting Currents – My book-length memoir focuses on two decades of farming in northern Ontario. But it is more than a story about going back to the land. With rural northern Ontario in the 1970s and 1980s as a backdrop, it delves into the personal conflicts and social pressures afflicting the generation of the 1960s as we moved into middle adulthood. In the harsh climate of northern Ontario, fantasies of pastoral serenity clashed with reality, traditional middle-class measures of success battled counter-culture and feminist alternatives, and the arrogance of book-knowledge butted heads with traditional, hands-on competence.

The Stuff of Life – A Quaker childhood, a hefty dose of adolescent insecurity, a conflicted relationship with 1970s Women’s Lib, an ill-advised business venture, a disastrous foray into politics, a post-retirement stint as a snow-bird—these and other experiences provide opportunities to reflect on larger questions: Where does the stuff that makes up a life begin? How do memories of childhood shape our view of the present? How do reflections from the present help make sense of the past? Those are some of the questions buried here in stories of childhood imaginings, adolescent insecurity, and the gradual evolution of a mature, then aging woman.

Visit: echoriver.ca/pauladunning

‘Someone who offers us a path to understanding the Land and the Creatures on it that we live with—human and non-human.’

sterling bennett