Aritha van Herk is the author of five novels: Judith, The Tent Peg, No Fixed Address, Places Far From Ellesmere (a geografictione) and Restlessness.  Her wide-ranging critical work is collected in A Frozen Tongue and In Visible Ink; she has published hundreds of articles, reviews and essays. Van Herk’s irreverent but relevant history of Alberta, Mavericks:  An Incorrigible History of Alberta, won the Grant MacEwan Author’s Award for Alberta Writing and frames the Mavericks exhibition at the Glenbow Museum and Archives in Calgary. With George Webber she has published In This Place: Calgary 2004-2011 and most recently, Prairie Gothic.

Stampede and the Westness of West

In 2012, the Calgary Stampede hosted Aritha van Herk as Artist in Residence, providing her with a privileged insider’s view of the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth. Stampede and the Westness of West is the result of her unique insights — a prose/poetry book that is meditative, imagistic, historical and speculative while eliciting all the humour, joy and occasional critique that the Stampede demands.