Ellie Eberlee

In 1974, thirteen-year-old Janice Derbyshire was raped by a group of seventeen- and eighteen-year-old boys in a pickup truck. No one came to help her. She was left “dishevelled and confused” behind a “faded-green grain elevator in southern Alberta.” Twenty-eight years later, Janice is no longer Janice. They are Joshua Dandelion, or JD, a “genderqueer, lesbian woboy who can make the sun stop in its tracks and is seen as a weed but has incredibly useful properties.” They are also hearing…

The 30-30 Winchester rifle Laurel Long held in her hands belonged to her father before he died. When she fired the gun in the kitchen of her family cabin one night in 1993, she was aiming at Rick, her mother’s violent boyfriend. At fourteen, Laurel was only trying to save Maxine’s life, and she did; Maxine recovered from Rick’s abuse at a local hospital…