Showing results by author "Tessa McWatt" in All Categories

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.

Northern India, 2009. Four travelers 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.

Katrin, a young Polish woman who moved to London before austerity reigned, is working long hours at the Epicure Cafe in order to earn enough money to bring her mother over as well. In the cafe she falls in love with a lecturer in film studies - but Robin comes with a past that will complicate any future they have together. As droves of once-hopeful Polish emigres return home, Katrin finds her life growing more difficult, especially when her boss in the cafe starts picking on her.

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?