PALIMPSE ST PRESS announces the release of a new poetry collection by Kate Braid, Turning Left to the Ladies at The Joint, Thursday June 18 @ 7 p.m.

In 1977 Kate Braid got her first job in construction as a labourer on a small island off the coast of British Columbia. Never in her wildest dreams did she plan to be a construction worker, much less a carpenter, but she was desperate to stay on the island and had run out of money, along with all the options a woman usually has for work—secretary, waitress, receptionist.

Turning Left to the Ladies is an autobiographical account of the fifteen years she worked as a labourer, apprentice, and journey carpenter, building houses, high rises and bridges. She was the first female member of the Vancouver local of the Carpenter's Union and the first full-time woman teaching trades at the BC Institute of Tec hnology.

Turning Left to the Ladies is a wry, sometimes humorous, sometimes meditative look at one woman’s relationship to her craft, and the people she met along the way.

In Kate’s own words, “…in 2006 when I was Woodward Chair at SFU I coordinated a research project on the numbers of women in trades in British Columbia and that number is the same now as it was in 1980 – less than three per cent. It made me realize the importance – still – of telling tradeswomen’s stories.”

Kate Braid’s previous books include Covering Rough Ground, which won the Pat Lowther Award, To This Cedar Fountain, nominated for the BC Poetry Book Prize, Inward to the Bones: Georgia O'Keeffe's Journey with Emily Carr, winner of the Vancity Book Prize, and A Well-Mannered Storm: The Glenn Gould Poems. With poet Sandy Shreve she edited In Fine Form: The Canadian Anthology of Form Poetry.

Kate's launch is Hosted by 32 Books, and scheduled for Thursday, June 18th at 7 pm The Joint, 445 West 2nd Ave. (Ph: 604-980-9032) To access the parking lot, travel west along 2nd Ave, stay in the right hand lane and you’ll find the entrance just past the building. Visit <www.thejoint.ca> and <www.palimsestpress.ca> for more information.