Our Sands

No subject, we’re all starting to admit, is as relevant as climate change. Our Sands is set in and around one of the least sustainable projects on the planet—the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. They inspire increasingly militant ‘ecoteurs’ who feel that one big dose of poison is the only way to stop the poisoning of land, water and First Nations peoples. Seventeen year-old Ocean Janak has grown up the privileged daughter of Blake, a geologist turned oil executive. When she falls for Rory McAllister, a bike courier who secretly scans many of the oil contracts he’s paid to deliver, she finds a lover and comrade-in-green-arms. Together, they say No to help the planet say Yes. Like Margaret Atwood, Our Sands knows that climate change is in fact 'everything change'.

Dr Darryl Whetter is the inaugural director of the first taught Creative Writing master’s degree in Singapore and Southeast Asia (at LASALLE College of the Arts). He is the author of four books of fiction and two poetry collections. His other novels include the bicycle odyssey The Push & the Pull and the multi-generational smuggling epic Keeping Things Whole. In his native Canada, he regularly reviewed books on national CBC Radio, and nearly 100 of his reviews have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Montreal Gazette, The National Post, Detroit’s Metro Times, etc.