Wordfest presents Claire Cameron

Wordfest presents Claire Cameron

Hosted by Christina Frangou

“True wilderness has no narrative. It is immediate, and visceral, beyond words at the time, and often beyond description later. So, it speaks to Claire Cameron’s courage and skill as a writer that she has triumphantly wrested such a compelling and profound story out of her journey, both into the wild heart of bear country, and into the terror-filled landscape of a devastating cancer diagnosis.” Trust acclaimed author Helen Humphreys to put into words why you simply can't miss this show with Claire Cameron, hosted by journalist Christina Frangou. They’ll be delving into Cameron’s astonishing memoir How to Survive a Bear Attack, her follow-up to The Last Neanderthal (a finalist for the 2017 Writers Trust Prize for Fiction). The conversation includes an audience Q & A and book signing, fuelled by Shelf Life Books. You can also place a pre-order for the book, as well as Cameron’s phenomenal backlist, here.

We are grateful to Penguin Random House Canada for making it possible to connect you with Claire Cameron.

About How to Survive a Bear Attack: A Memoir

In this debut memoir from the bestselling author of The Bear and The Last Neanderthal, Claire Cameron confronts the rare genetic mutation that gave her cancer by investigating an equally rare and terrifying event—a predatory bear attack.

When Claire Cameron was nine years old, her father told her he was dying. In the years after he was gone, she overcame her grief among the rivers and lakes of Algonquin Park, a vast Canadian wilderness. Around that same time, in 1991, a couple was killed in a rare predatory black bear attack in the park—an event that shocked and haunted Claire.

Years later, with children of her own, Cameron was diagnosed with the same kind of deadly skin cancer as her father. Caught in a second wave of grief, she was told by her doctor, “the ideal exposure to UV light is none.” No longer able to venture into the wilderness as she once had, she again became obsessed with the bear attack in Algonquin Park. How could terror rip through such a beautiful place? Could she separate truth from fiction? She headed north to investigate.

Seamlessly weaving together nature writing with true crime investigation in this unflinching account of recovery, How to Survive a Bear Attack is at once an intimate portrait of an extraordinary animal, a bracing chronicle of pain, obsession, and love, and a profoundly moving exploration of how we can understand and survive the wildness that lives inside

About Claire Cameron

Claire Cameron’s most recent novel, The Last Neanderthal, was a national bestseller in 2017. Her second novel, The Bear, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was a #1 national bestseller. It won the North Lit Award from the Ontario Library Service, which her first novel, The Line Painter also won. Claire has led canoe trips in Algonquin Park and was an instructor for Outward Bound, teaching mountaineering, climbing and whitewater rafting in Oregon and beyond. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Millions, and The Guardian, and she is a contributor to The Globe and Mail. She lives in Toronto with her family.

Website: claire-cameron.com
Substack: @clairecameron
Bluesky: clairecameron@.bsky.social
Instagram/Threads: @clairecameron123

About Host Christina Frangou

Christina Frangou is a Calgary journalist who writes about health and social issues. Her stories have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Maclean's and The Guardian, among others, and cover topics like refugee health, domestic violence, loneliness and widowhood. Frangou has received a National Newspaper Award and multiple National Magazine Awards for feature writing. In 2022, she was awarded the Landsberg Award from the Canadian Women’s Foundation and Canadian Journalism Foundation for her work shedding light on gender injustice in Canada.

Website: christinafrangou.com
Bluesky: cfrangou.bsky.social
Instagram/Threads: @thatcmf

Be Curiouser

• Life outdoors after a skin cancer diagnosis. -The Current with Matt Galloway
• Opinion: Every Sunday I drop the screens and do one thing that fills me. -Toronto Star
• To Sleep on the Street: Through found phrases, Claire Cameron assembles a portrait of homelessness. -The Globe and Mail