We’ll try not to fangirl. When we first heard about Caro Claire Burke’s debut novel, Yesteryear, about a social media influencer and “tradwife” who wakes up one morning living 170 years in the past, we immediately reached out to her publisher to bring her to Calgary! Actor Anne Hathaway was smitten too: she optioned the book before pub date. So we’re thrilled that Burke—who co-hosts Diabolical Lies, a podcast we’re also somewhat obsessed with—is coming to Wordfest on her only Canadian tour date. The conversation, hosted by Paula Turcotte, includes an audience Q&A and book signing.
“I was desperate to get my hands on this book, and then I stayed up past my bedtime finishing it,” raves Paula. “If you don’t already love Caro (and her epic podcast Diabolical Lies), you will once you discover Yesteryear.”
“Perfect wife, perfect life? Think again. A bold and biting satire, Yesteryear examines the power of social media to spin a lie so deep, it turns ‘home sweet home’ into a prison. Page-turning and illuminating, this caustic look at the tradwife will have you cackling and gasping right to the final page.” –Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid series
Paula Turcotte
Lively Conversation
Libations Bar, with non-alcoholic options
Audience Q&A
Book Signing
75 minutes. No intermission
Caro Claire Burke received her Master’s in Fine Arts from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She is the co-host of Diabolical Lies, a politics and culture podcast. Yesteryear is her first novel.
Marie Claire’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026 • Vogue’s Best Books of 2026 So Far
A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.
My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.
A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.
Paula Turcotte
Lively Conversation
Libations Bar, with non-alcoholic options
Audience Q&A
Book Signing
75 minutes. No intermission
Paula Turcotte is the Youth Programming Associate at Wordfest. She is a writer and poet who holds an MSt in Creative Writing from Oxford. Her debut chapbook of poetry, Permutations, was published in July 2024 by Baseline Press. Her poems have been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award and longlisted in ROOM’s Poetry Contest. Her recent work appears in Canthius, Arc Poetry, and elsewhere.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Iyarhe Nakoda Nations, the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6, and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.
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