Jann Arden

On mean Harp Bittlemore’s blighted farm, hidden away in the Backhills, nothing has gone right for a very long time. Crops don’t grow, the pigs and chickens stay skinny and the three aged dairy cows, Berle, Crilla and Dally, are so desperate they are plotting an escape. The one thing holding them back is the thought of abandoning young Willa, the single bright point in their life since her older sister, Margaret, ran away.

But Willa Bittlemore, just turning 14, is planning her own rebellion. Something doesn’t add up in the story she’s been told about her missing sister, and she’s beginning to question if her horrible parents are even her parents at all. Just as things are really coming to a head, a bright young police officer starts investigating a cold case involving a baby stolen from a little rural hospital 28 years earlier, and Willa and the cows find out exactly how far the Bittlemores will go to protect a festering secret.

Written with Jann’s trademark outrageous humour and full of her down-to-earth wisdom, The Bittlemores is a rural fairytale, a coming-of-age story and a prairie mystery all-in-one, saturated with her observations of the world she grew up in and her deep connection to the animals we exploit. This marvel of a first novel digs into how people come to be so cruel, but it also glories in the miracle of human kindness.

Feeding My Mother is a piercingly honest account of the transformation in Jann Arden’s life that has turned her into the primary “parent” to her mom, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. The many people who have a loved one with dementia, will find inspiration and strength in this “totally Jann” take on the upside-down world of a daughter mothering her mother.

From the honest to the laugh-out-loud funny, Jann’s stories from home and from the road during her pre-celebrity years will take you to unexpected places, including high school parties in farmer’s fields, sleepovers under the stars, hard-to-believe summer jobs and the time she was stuck upside down in a brick barbecue. She reminds us of the inestimable value to a child of having teachers who believe in you and wide open spaces to play. When Jann was experiencing a lot of firsts how lucky for all of us that she stole away to her basement and taught herself her first song on her mother’s guitar.

It’s been said that Jann Arden can bring an audience to tears through song only to have them rolling in the aisles moments later with her off-the-cuff comedy. It’s this juxtaposition, the poet’s gift for poignant love songs paired with a comedian’s timing and self-deprecating wit that has earned Jann a legion of loyal fans on the stage as well as the page. Little escapes the observant and immensely creative Jann whose musings and entertaining ramblings travel beyond goose poop to ponder the state of the world, the state of the States, and the state of her hair (she really is a blonde).