An Evening with Sharon Butala

In conversation with Maurice Mierau and signing Where I Live Now: A Journey through Love and Loss to Healing and Hope (Simon & Schuster). Co-presented by the Winnipeg International Writers Festival as part of our collaborative Spring Literary Series.

When Sharon Butala’s husband, Peter, died unexpectedly, she found herself with no place to call home. Torn by grief and loss, she fled the ranchlands of southwest Saskatchewan and moved to the city, leaving almost everything behind. A lifetime of possessions was reduced to a few boxes of books, clothes, and keepsakes. But a lifetime of experience went with her, and a limitless well of memory—of personal failures, of a marriage that everybody said would not last but did, of the unbreakable bonds of family.

Reinventing herself in an urban landscape was painful, and facing her new life as a widow tested her very being. Yet out of this hard-won new existence comes a memoir that offers not only solace and hope but inspiration to those who endure profound loss.