One of CBC’s 50 top nonfiction titles for spring 2026!After being tracked by wolves and left behind in the forest as a child, after sleeping through a flame-spilling chimney fire, after regularly riding in vehicles driven by adults under the influence, and after physically fighting off one of her mother’s abusive partners, author Michelle Willms is both surprised and grateful she survived her northern childhood. Following the sudden death of her mother in 2001, Willms began writing about her and her family’s history to better understand how tragedy and the breakdown of trust impacted multiple generations, and to find healing.Brave, engaging and electric, Northern Girls is a collection of true stories about the fractured legacy of growing up in rural northern Ontario. Exploring themes of generational trauma, parental addictions, and domestic violence, Willms confronts a past replete with both fragility and resilience.Michelle Willms holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a Bachelor of Social Work from McMaster University, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. Her writing has appeared in multiple literary journals, as well as the anthology This Side of the Divide: Stories of the American West (Baobab Press). She is the 2021/2022 recipient of the Norman L. Rothstein Memorial Scholarship, awarded by the Smith Family Foundation on the recommendation of the Department of Creative Writing. Michelle and her family live in Southern Ontario, Canada, as settlers on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Ojibway/Chippewa, and Haudenosaunee peoples.