Mallory Tater is a talented poet and writer, an empowering female role model, as well as my loving cousin. This website is designed to showcase her talent, passion, and devotion to opening up a dialogue about feminism through her writing.
Mallory Tater is a writer from Ottawa living in Vancouver with her husband Curtis LeBlanc. Her debut novel The Birth Yard is being release with Harper Collins Canada in 2020.
Her debut book of poetry This Will Be Good was released Spring 2018.
Her poetry & fiction have been published in literary magazines across Canada such as Room, CV2, The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Prism International and Arc Magazine. She was shortlisted for Arc Magazine's 2015 Poem of The Year Contest, The Malahat Review's 2016 Far Horizon's Contest and Room Magazine's 2016 Fiction and Poetry Prizes.
Mallory currently teaches fiction at The University of British Columbia and The University of Victoria.
You can learn more about Mallory here.
Mallory was recently featured in Oprah Magazine discussing her love of Alcott's novel, Little Women, and how she sees herself in the character of Jo March - a wilful and unapologetic writer.
This Will Be Good tells the story of a young woman's burgeoning femininity as it brushes up against an emerging eating disorder. As the difficulties of her disease reveal themselves, they ultimately disrupt family relationships and friendships.
These poems deftly bear witness to the performance of femininity and gender construction to reveal the shrinking mind and body of a girl trying to find her place in the world, and whose overflowing adolescent hope for a future will not subside.
The Birth Yard is a gripping story of a young woman's rebellion against the rules that control her body. Sable Ursu has just turned eighteen, which means she is ready to breed. Within the confines of her world, a patriarchal cult known as the Den, female fertility and sexuality are wholly controlled by Men. In the season they come of age, Sable and her friends Mamie and Dinah are each paired with a Match with the purpose of conceiving a child. Sable is paired with Ambrose, the son of a favoured Man in the Den. Others are not so lucky.
In their second trimester, girls are sent to the Birth Yard, where they are prepared for giving birth and motherhood, but are also regularly drugged and monitored by their midwives. Sable is unable to ignore her unease about the pills they are forced to swallow and the punishments they receive for stepping out of line. Too many of the girls, including Mamie and Dinah, have secrets and it is impossible to know whom to trust. When Sable's loyalty is questioned and her safety within the Den is threatened, she must rebel against the only life she has ever known-the only life she has been designed for.
Mallory Tater weaves an intricate narrative, equal parts suspense and action, while twisting contemporary social anxieties to dizzying extremes. She meticulously deconstructs the intricate relationships between womanhood, government and the female body. A startling and important debut novel, The Birth Yard echoes Margaret Atwood's dark and cautionary classic The Handmaid's Tale. But this is no dystopian world; there is no totalitarian government. The Den exists now.
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Period The winter my waist shed six inches, |
I am a second year student in the School for Advanced Studies in the Arts and Humanities at Western University, with a specialisation in English Literature and a certificate in Ethics. Mallory Tater is my cousin, while also a dear friend and inspiring role model. Mallory has always known how to captivate an audience with her natural ability for storytelling, and she is unquestionably one of the funniest people I know.