Squawk

Annie Runningbird doesn’t have time for any kind of games that boys want to play. Like the games that subtly put women in the background as insignificant sex workers or the mind tricks that manipulate vulnerable girls with hurtful words. She has enough to deal with as she comes closer to “aging out of the system.” Instead of receiving a gift, young, abandoned First Nations girls are ejected from care on their eighteenth birthdays. Even though she was comfortable on her own, Annie finds herself caught between Isaac, a cute but naive boy she met in the mall food court, and Louis, her manipulative and aggressive care-worker. Annie has to find a safe place soon.

Forced to grow up at a rapid rate, Annie faces big decisions and obstacles. She feels the pull to reconnect with her heritage and grandmother in the North, but living in the city is enticing, even though lots of girls like her go missing. And as tough as she can talk, she’s still at risk of being exploited. When time runs out, Annie needs to win her game.

Megan Gail Coles is a graduate of Memorial University, the National Theatre School of Canada, and is currently enrolled in the UBC M.F.A. Opt-Res program. She is the co-founder and artistic director of Poverty Cove Theatre Company. She is presently working on her debut novel (House of Anansi, 2017) and the Driftwood Trilogy of plays. Megan’s first fiction collection, Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome (Killick), won the BMO Winterset Award, the ReLit Award, and the Margaret & John Savage First Book Award, and earned her the one-time Writers’ Trust Five x Five prize. Originally from Savage Cove on the Great Northern Peninsula, Megan now resides in St. John’s, where she is also the artist-in-residence at the Arts and Culture Centre.