Relative to Wind: On Sailing, Craft and Community

Published by the newly-formed Assembly Press in October 2024, Relative to Wind: On Sailing, Craft and Community is a collection of eighteen essays about my journey of learning to sail and what it means to be a newcomer to an old tradition. It is my attempt to poetically render the points of sail, crew positions, racing tactics, dinghy lessons, yacht club history and community, race organization and gender equity in racing in non-technical language so that readers unfamiliar and familiar with the sport might find new metaphors and ways of navigating, as it did for me and my creative life. The essays take a decolonial, anti-racist and gender equity perspective that questions what it means to belong, to be a part of a community, and to engage in an activity that still sees few women of colour. The range of styles and tones in Relative to Wind might find the reader, like the helmswoman on the cover, suddenly off balance but nonetheless exhilarated by the constant shifts.

The book is available for order from Assembly Press and I was fortunately work with publishers and editors Leigh Nash and Andrew Faulkner on this manuscript.

Reviews of Relative to Wind:

Bookclubs.com Discussion Guide

Leave a comment