Heather Simeney MacLeod's latest collection of poetry takes hold of memories, ancestors, family, and kin amid years spent in Canada's western provinces and northern territories, as well as Scotland's Shetland Isles and Highlands. Amidst the Michif Nation that is her heritage, MacLeod navigates the silt bluffs, watersheds, and archipelagos from Canada's north to Scotland's that inform a sinuous spill to her verse. MacLeod writes of the arctic, the interior of BC, the plains of the prairies, the inlets and deltas making of geography a rhythm and roll of memory. MacLeod's poetry is pulled by the coursing of generations and characterized by narratives and a compelling lyric intensity. These poems share a charged tone and agile focus upon the concentrated territory of memory, time, and death. "I was born into a world, like all the others/ filled with killing and chaos, burning and rain,/ grace and beauty. And, I can still take a deep breath./ I am still breathing," MacLeod writes, and Cracking Apricot Pits to Flavour the Heart is an attempt to reveal the dense evocativeness of that world.

Heather Simeney MacLeod is a citizen of the Métis Nation. She's published four collections of poetry--My Flesh the Sound of Rain (Coteau Books), The Burden of Snow(Turnstone Press), Intermission (J. Shillingford Press), The Little Yellow House (McGill). Heather's first poetry book, My Flesh the Sound of Rain was nominated for the First Nations Publishing Award. Smoking Lung Press published a chapbook, Shapes of Orion. Heather's poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in most major national literary journals as well as appearing in continental and international magazines. Heather's plays have received two honourable mentions in the Alaska Native's Playwright competition as well as in the publication Aboriginal Voices. Her creative nonfiction has been long-listed in CBC's literary competition on more than one occasion. She's lived throughout western and northern Canada, received her BA from the University of Victoria, her Master in Social Sciences from the University of Edinburgh, and her PhD in English and Film Studies from the University of Alberta. She works as an Assistant Teaching Professor and lives with her family in Kamloops, BC.

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