Last evening at Vancouver Community College (Clark campus), about 130 people celebrated the launch of the book They Called Me Number One, which is currently in second place on the BC Bestsellers list.

With a backdrop of treetops and in the bright light of a setting sun, Chief Bev Sellars of the Xat’sull (Soda Creek) First Nation in Williams Lake, British Columbia, spoke for forty-five minutes to a captivated audience. She discussed the process she went through while writing They Called Me Number One and seeing it published, and then read some excerpts from her book about the experiences and struggles of herself and those around whom she grew up.

Chief Sellars ended her talk with an anecdote (also from the book) about an experience she had with anger, which she concluded was the natural product of oppression and disempowerment. The way through, she asserted, for First Nations peoples recovering from the horrifying experience of the residential school system, is to collectively and individually tell the story of this experience; the telling is itself an act of healing, for both those who know the experience intimately, and for those who need to know.

Finally, Bev introduced some of her family members who figure in her memoir and who were sitting in the audience: her mother, her son, and the two granddaughters whose image graces the front cover of the book.

The audience enjoyed Bev’s conversational style and meaty-yet-digestible words. Afterward they enjoyed meeting and talking with the speaker and nibbling on bannock, salmon, and bison meatballs.