Tanya has a new book of poetry coming out: The Hospitality of Trees

The Hospitality of Trees

by Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt

In this intimate and contemplative collection, Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt traces the parallels between the inner landscape of her family and the changing seasons of North Hatley. Memory, carried like seeds in the pocket, opens into unexpected horizons, where sorrow transforms into beauty and the ordinary becomes sacred. Trees appear as witnesses and faithful companions, offering solace in grief and standing quietly alongside moments of joy.

The Hospitality of Trees will be released this month and is available for pre-order here.

Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt holds an MA in English Literature from McGill University and an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. These days, she lives in Quebec’s Eastern Townships with her husband and four children. She was born in Germany to French-Canadian parents and grew up on various army bases across Canada, from Quebec’s North Shore to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

When she was twelve, her family moved to Tiberius, Israel, where her father served as a United Nations peacekeeper on the Golan Heights. When war broke out with Lebanon, Tanya and her family moved to Beirut, where they lived for seven months, at the height of the Lebanese civil war.

Tanya’s journal from 1982-1983 became the seeds of her memoir, Peacekeeper’s Daughter.

Peacekeeper’s Daughter is both a coming-of-age story and an exploration of family dynamics, the shattering effects of violence and war, and the power of memory itself to reconcile us to our past selves, to the extraordinary places we have been and sights we have seen.

Tanya has also published a previous volume of poetry with Shoreline Press: Chaos Theories of Goodness (here) Her collection of short memoir pieces, Carrying War, will be published by Dundurn Press in May 2026.

Tanya’s also published numerous poems and stories and has been nominated for a number of awards (see here). Currently, she’s working on some books for children and a novel for adults about American expats in Beirut called Birdsong Hollow.

You can read an excerpt from Peacekeeper’s Daughter here, It’s available through the publisher, Thistledown Press here or order it through your local bookstore – see here.

***

Note: Tanya will be the guest speaker for our “Writing Personal Stories” course this fall. See here.

See more books by your fellow authors here (and scroll down).

See all of Brian’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and four-day retreats here.

“Chaos Theories of Goodness” by Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt, reviewed by Steve Luxton

Shoreline Press (2022), 70 pp., $14.95 (paper). Available here.

In her poetry collection about the Covid epidemic, Chaos Theories of Goodness, Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt remarks that if you’d predicted during the cheerful New Year’s celebration of 2020, what actually was about to happen, she would never have believed it, let alone imagined it. But it did, and so now, with her wings and ours too, clipped, she shows how the use of imagination gave her a path through the ordeal. Stuck unexpectedly at home, she dealt with her cabin fever and concern by writing a daily poem.

Chaos Theories is a series of poetic commentaries about her – and our – life while flapping dispiritedly within the cage of Covid 19. She discusses the details, both inner and outer, of suffering enforced domesticity.

There’s no shrill outrage or bellyaching here, just her sincere, quietly earnest voice expressing real anxiety at this contemporary plague. In her poem “Passover Prayer,” she writes: “May the angel of Death/on its gruesome flight/over nation, province, village/pass over us.”

Like all of us, she deeply longs for the bug to be gone, when she’ll happily join the rest of us with “the whistles, warbles and shouts/of our communal cheer.” But she also recommends a little proportion. In the poem “Plague,” she describes a huge East African cloud of locusts blocking daylight, so voracious they’ll “eat the tongue/right out of your mouth.” While in another piece, aptly titled “Perspective,” she tells how monstrous African floods have displaced and left thousands destitute.

Tanya

So, count your blessings.

She proposes that one way to do this, when your secure routines are swept away, is first to accept and even ratify the change, as in “Looking at Caravaggio’s Entombment”: “You are right where you belong.” Then, to seek nourishment in and note the small, meaningful things, which she describes in “My List of Small Things.” Also, she reminds us that mass dislocations – particularly epidemics – while painful at first and isolating, have paradoxically permitted the time for learning and great bursts of creativity in the arts and other fields.

Bellehumeur-Allatt writes: “I sign us up for lessons online:/ … We will emerge from our quarantine like Shakespeare/ And Newton, with theories and plays and solutions.”

The poet is not into unchecked moaning and groaning! She seeks out the constructive side of our current tribulation. Also, the funny one. Her fine sense of humour shows in “Dishevelment: A Sonnet,” where she laments how with the hairdressers shut due to the lockdown, our hair, grown out and self-styled by our own amateurish hands, is such a sight, the only solution is to “turn our mirrors to the wall.” Elsewhere, she prophesies mischievously that, after the epidemic, there will be a similar outcome as that which followed the Great Northeast Blackout – plenty of babies!

Bellehumeur-Allatt’s poems are serious but also, when life urgently requires it, comic and even light-hearted. Moving, intelligent, always accessible, they eloquently speak to and for us in this abnormal and surprising time.

***

Steve Luxton lives in Hatley, Quebec, and is currently Writer in Residence at the Lennoxville Library. This article originally appeared in The Townships Sun (Vol. 49 No. 5 February 2022) p. 17.

Note: You can read a whole collection of Covid pieces on Quick Brown Fox, including two poems from Tanya and even a piece by me. Just click here and scroll down. ~Brian

See Brian Henry’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here.

Online Writing Personal Stories class January 17 – March 28

Writing Personal Stories

Nine weeks of sharing and writing (with a special guest speaker)

Online: Monday evenings, 7 – 9 p.m.
January 17 – March 28, 2022 {no class March 7}
Offered online and accessible from anywhere there's internet 

If you've ever considered writing your personal stories, this course is for you. We’ll look at memoirs, travel writing, personal essays, family history ~ personal stories of all kinds. Plus, of course, we’ll work on creativity and writing technique and have fun doing it. 

Whether you want to write a book or just get your thoughts down on paper, this weekly course will get you going. We'll reveal the tricks and conventions of telling true stories, and we’ll show you how to use the techniques of the novel to recount actual events. Weekly writing exercises and friendly feedback from the instructor will help you move forward on this writing adventure. Whether you want to write for your family and friends or for a wider public, don't miss this course.

Our guest speaker will be Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Peacekeeper’s Daughter. She holds an MA in English Literature from McGill University and an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. 

These days, Tanya lives in Quebec’s Eastern Townships with her husband and four children. She was born in Germany to French-Canadian parents and grew up on various army bases across Canada, from Quebec’s North Shore to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. When she was twelve, her family moved to Tiberius, Israel, where her father served as a United Nations peacekeeper on the Golan Heights. When war broke out with Lebanon, Tanya and her family moved to Beirut, where they lived for seven months, at the height of the Lebanese civil war.

Tanya’s journal from 1982-1983 became the seeds of her memoir, Peacekeeper’s Daughter.

Peacekeeper’s Daughter is both a coming-of-age story and an exploration of family dynamics, the shattering effects of violence and war, and the power of memory itself to reconcile us to our past selves, to the extraordinary places we have been and sights we have seen.

Tanya has had poems and stories published (click here and here for a taste), has been nominated for some awards (see here), and is currently working on a number of works for children and a novel for adults.

You can read an excerpt from Peacekeeper’s Daughter here, It’s available through the publisher, Thistedown Press here, from Chapters here, or order it through your local bookstore – see here.

Instructor Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada's most popular blog for writers, teaches creative writing at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Saint John. But his proudest boast is that he’s has helped many of his students get published.  

Read reviews of Brian's various courses and workshops here {and scroll down}.

Fee: $176.11 plus 13% hst = $199

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See all of Brian’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here. 

Peacekeeper’s Daughter by Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt available now

Peacekeeper’s Daughter by Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt

Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt holds an MA in English Literature from McGill University and an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, and these days, she lives in Quebec’s Eastern Townships with her husband and four children.

But Tanya was born in Germany to French-Canadian parents and grew up on various army bases across Canada, from Quebec’s North Shore to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. When she was twelve years old, her family moved to Tiberius, Israel, where her father served as a United Nations peacekeeper on the Golan Heights. When war broke out with Lebanon, Tanya and her family moved to Beirut, where they lived for seven months, at the height of the Lebanese civil war.

Tanya’s journal from 1982-1983 became the seeds of her memoir, Peacekeeper’s Daughter.

Tanya

Peacekeeper’s Daughter is both a coming-of-age story and an exploration of family dynamics, the shattering effects of violence and war, and the power of memory itself to reconcile us to our past selves, to the extraordinary places we have been and sights we have seen.

Read an excerpt of Peacekeeper’s Daughter here.

Published by Thistledown Press, Peacekeeper’s Daughter is available now. Order your copy now from the publisher here, Chapters here, or order it through your local bookstore, here.

***

See Brian Henry’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here.

 

Excerpt from Peacekeeper’s Daughter by Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt

Peacekeeper’s Daughter is Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt’s memoir of when, as a 12-year-old child, her family was stationed in Israel and Lebanon in 1982-1983, just following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and in the midst of Lebanese Civil War. It’s a coming-of-age story, as well as an exploration of family dynamics, the shattering effects of violence and war – and the power of memory itself to reconcile us to our past selves, to the extraordinary places we have been and sights we have seen.

It will be published September 30 by Thistledown Press. Pre-order your copy now from the publisher here, Chapters here, or order it through your local bookstore here.

Excerpt – Beirut, 1983.

At school that Monday, I sat in the library after lunch. My grade seven class was in the basement for band practice, but I had a free period. Since I’d only started at the school in January and didn’t play a band instrument, I was exempted from music class. I spent my free time on the top floor in the reading lounge, next to Mr. Thierry’s classroom. After that, I would study advanced French while my class did beginner, baby French in our regular classroom downstairs. At dinner time at home, I took perverse pleasure in imitating the way they counted to ten with their thick accents.

Suddenly, there was a deafening boom, a sound louder than I’d ever heard before. Everything shook. The room went black. Books fell off the shelves. The chairs next to me rolled over. A window cracked and split, sending shards flying.

After the huge sound of the blast, there was a thick quiet. I sat alone in the darkened library, assessing the damage. What just happened? Was it an earthquake? What should I do?

A light shone around me. “C’est l’heure du français,” Monsieur Thierry announced. I stood up, eyes blinking, and followed his flashlight beam into the classroom adjacent to the library. For the next hour, we conjugated French verbs by candlelight. “Que je puisse, que tu puisses.” Monsieur Thierry’s lips pushed forward when he spoke, as if all the words were teetering on the edge of his mouth, ready to dribble out. I thought of Richie and how puisse sounded like the English word kiss.

Whether Monsieur Thierry had forgotten about the blast that had just shaken our school or decided that his curriculum was more important, we carried on covering the board with our white-chalked declensions made visible by the candles on the teacher’s desk and the shafts of faint afternoon light coming in from the upper casement windows.

We were a small group, our numbers at the American Community School greatly reduced by both the civil war and the war with Israel. As tensions in the city escalated, most diplomats packed up their families and returned to their own countries. The only new influx of expats to the city were fifteen hundred U.S. Marines sent by President Reagan to man the five U.S. warships anchored a few kilometres offshore.

Tanya Bellehumer-Allatt by Louise Abbott

After Advanced French, I joined my class on the first floor for grade seven English. Mr. Turner examined us with his one good eye, while his glass eye stared straight ahead. Its fixed look unnerved me. It was like staring at a camera. I imagined it photographing my secret thoughts—a bionic eye with special powers.

“A bomb has exploded nearby, at the American Embassy,” Mr. Turner informed the class once we had taken our seats. “Fortunately for us, our school remains unscathed.” He paused, but only for a breath. “Please take out your copies of Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper. We will read aloud, beginning at Chapter Three.”

My hands picked up the paperback and flipped mechanically to the correct page while my mind wrestled to process this new information. I raised my hand. “How close did we come to being hit?”

 Mr. Turner’s glass eye stared at a distant spot behind my head while his good eye looked out the window. “We’ll find out soon enough,” he said.

It was a relief to get lost in the story of a faraway place and forget about what was going on in the city around us.

 “Be careful on the way home,” Mr. Turner said before dismissing the class for the day. “See you tomorrow.”

Our regular route through the campus was blocked off by red tape marked DANGER. We were shepherded into two lines and made to show our identity cards and hand our schoolbags over for inspection by armed French military police at three different makeshift checkpoints inside the gate, before finally being given permission to exit onto the street. Sirens blared nearby, and traffic on the main street was barred. The empty street was an eerie sight compared to the usual noisy tangle of cars and pedestrians.

My brother walked a few paces ahead of me. “Did you hear it?” I asked him. I watched the back of his head nod yes.

“I was in art,” he mumbled. It was hard to hear from behind. I got as close to him as I could, but the passage was only wide enough to walk single file.

“We left class and went there.” He stepped onto the street to avoid a pile of garbage on the sidewalk. In the absence of waste removal services, the citizens of Beirut piled their garbage in huge stinking mounds on the sidewalk. Those nearest to the beach threw it into the Mediterranean. After almost ten years of anarchy and civil war, the city resembled a massive dump.

“What do you mean? Where did you go?” Our school never went on field trips of any kind; it was too dangerous to leave the gated compound.

“Mrs. Gunthrey wanted to see what had happened. Her husband works at the embassy, and she needed to make sure he was all right. So she took us there.”

“Was he okay?” I kicked at an empty sardine can, shuffling it back and forth between my feet like a soccer ball.

“Took a while, but we found him. He was all white. Covered in dust. He thought his arm might be broken. He was holding onto a woman whose face was cut up. Her eyes were full of blood.”

After that, my brother was quiet for a long time. I kept my head down and followed his footsteps exactly, walking in the street to sidestep more garbage and a car parked on the sidewalk, also a common occurrence in this city without traffic lights or police surveillance.

“I saw a car wrapped around a telephone pole,” my brother said in a voice so low I thought maybe I hadn’t heard him properly.

 “What? How?”

“It’s the force of the blast,” he said. “It picks up anything in its way.”

 ***

Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt’s stories, poems and essays have been published in Best Canadian Essays 2019 and Best Canadian Essays 2015, The Antigonish Review, Grain, EVENT, Prairie Fire, Malahat Review, subTerrain, carte blanche, Room, Crux, The Centrifugal Eye, Qarrtsiluni, The Occupy Anthology and Water Lines: New Writing from the Eastern Townships of Quebec.

Tanya has been nominated for a National Magazine Award as well as a Western Magazine Award and received a Canada Council Grant for her manuscript of Peacekeeper’s Daughter. She holds an MA from McGill and an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC.

Read more about Tanya and her writing here.

Pre-order your copy of Peacekeeper’s Daughter from the publisher, Thistedown Press here, from Chapters here, or order it through your local bookstore here.

For information about submitting to Thistledown Press, see here.

See Brian Henry’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here.