Meet Kay Parley - June 9 at Bentley Hillsdale Seniors' Residence
Kay Parley, at 101 years old, is still sharing her literary genius. Join her on Sunday, June 9th, between 2 and 4 p.m. at the Bentley Hillsdale senior's residence, 3105 Hillsdale St, Regina, SK S4S 7K8, to help her launch two new books this year: One Woman's Century and Flash-In-The-Sky Boy. Both have roots in Saskatchewan, particularly around the Moffat and Wolseley areas and topics of interest that touch people across the country.
ONE WOMAN'S CENTURY
A remarkable, one-of-a-kind collection. filled with insight, anecdotes, and fascinating snapshots from the past, ONE WOMAN'S CENTURY is a celebration of the life and work of iconic Saskatchewan author Kay Parley, covering the full scope of her work from 1938 all the way to 2024. That’s 86 years of her writing! ONE WOMAN’S CENTURY is the first comprehensive collection of her work, spanning the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression to the climate change of today. Timely, heart-felt and endlessly fascinating.
FLASH-IN-THE-SKY BOY
Billy Gibson was ahead of his time. An understatement. A boy who immigrated to a pioneer farm south of Wolseley, Saskatchewan, grew up to build and fly the first place to be built and flown in Canada. He did all his early experiments with flight while living on his father’s pioneer farm. His playmates were Indigenous children from the nearby reservation. Did they believe he would fly? Perhaps they did, but grownups laughed. When you meet the young man in this book, you’ll wonder how it could possibly have happened. But it did. Flash-in-the-Sky Boy is a true story about William Wallace Gibson, Canada's first aviator.
KAY PARLEY
At the age of 101, Kay is still going strong, with a regular column in the Wolseley Bulletin. She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Inside the Mental: Silence, Stigma, Psychiatry, and LSD about her time at the Weyburn Mental Institute in the 1950s, first as a patient, and then as a psychiatric nurse, and of the magical novel The Grass People about a world tucked out of sight beneath the leafy plants and tall grass we walk by every day.
In 2019, Kay Parley was the subject of an award-winning documentary, A Mind of Her Own, by filmmaker Judith Silverthorne. A talented painter, educator, and author, Kay worked with Lorne Greene at CBC Radio and taught sociology for many years at the Kelsey Institute in Saskatoon. Kay also has three other books out in paperback and eBook now: The dark 70's Hollywood mystery, The Monkey Vault. Set in a 1920s bizarre mansion in Beverly Hills, this whodunit contrasts movie stars with their more down-to-earth employees, amid a mystery of inexplicable murder.
Then there's The Human Touch, available in English and Chinese. Some years ago, Kay suffered a severely broken wrist and ran into such bad luck when it was set she was left with a wrist that was thick, cold and immobile. Desperate, she went to a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. He gave me a lot of treatments, mostly painless and interesting and I ended up with a wrist as good as new. So she wrote an account of this experience, The Human Touch. The last of her books offered this year is The Christmas Room, a small booklet format. This is a short children's story about growing up with a creative person in your life.
Everyone is invited Kay’s book launch, June 9th at the Bentley Hillsdale Seniors’ Residence!
All of Kay's new books will be available for purchase and autographing at the launch. If you can’t make it on June 9th, Kay’s books are available locally and online through Penny University Bookstore in Regina (https://shop.pennyu.ca/) and the Friesens Press Bookstore (https://books.friesenpress.com/store/title/119734000399173751/Kay-Parley-One-Woman's-Century).
Check out Kay's previous Folklore publications at the archives:
JUDITH SILVERTHORNE
Silverlight Productions Inc.
2720 College Ave, #603
Regina, SK S4T 1T9
+1-306-550-5800
https://judithsilverthorne.ca
https://silverlightproductionsinc.com/
“people stories” shares articles from Folklore Magazine, a Saskatchewan History & Folklore Society publication.