WL Library to host Xat'sull Chief (and Author) Bev Sellars

Courtesy of the Cariboo Regional District:

Xat'sull Chief Bev Sellars

Xat’sull First Nation Chief Bev Sellars will be at the Cariboo Regional District’s (CRD) Williams Lake Branch Library on Tuesday, Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. to present and speak about her book, They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School.

This book is the first full-length memoir to be published out of St. Joseph’s Mission School at Williams Lake, BC, and tells of three generations of women who attended the school, interweaving the personal histories of her grandmother and her mother with her own. Sellars documents the emotional and physical trauma she experienced, and gives insight on her own journey toward healing.

In addition to spending 40 weeks on the B.C. Bestsellers list in 2013 and 2014, They Called Me Number One was shortlisted for the 2014 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize (B.C. Book Prizes), and won the 2014 George Ryga Award for social awareness in literature.

Chief Sellars has a degree in history from the University of Victoria and a law degree from the University of British Columbia, and she has served as advisor for the B.C. Treaty Commission. She was first elected chief of Xat’sull (Soda Creek) First Nation in 1987 and has spoken out on behalf of her community on issues such as racism, residential schools, and environmental rights and protection.

The event is taking place in the CRD’s Williams Lake Library, located at Suite A, 180 N. Third Avenue. For further information, please email wlake@cariboord.bc.ca or call 250-392-3630.