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Theresa Kishkan

@fishgottaswim.bsky.social
621 followers 461 following 2.2K posts

a devotee of essays, novellas, hybrid writing, rivers, trees. 17 books. The Art of Looking Back: a painter, an obsession, and reclaiming the gaze, forthcoming (Thornapple Press, 2026). North American half of fishgottaswimeditions.com theresakishkan.com

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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 13h
theresakishkan.com/2026/10/03/a... Alt text: two boys on green grass beside red chairs
theresakishkan.com
at the book sale, historian-forward
I was in the ancient history section and noticed the books inscribed with an owner’s name and on the other side of the room, Forrest was looking through the collectible books and he noted the…
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 13h
theresakishkan.com/2026/10/03/a... Alt text: two boys on green grass beside red chairs
theresakishkan.com
at the book sale, historian-forward
I was in the ancient history section and noticed the books inscribed with an owner’s name and on the other side of the room, Forrest was looking through the collectible books and he noted the…
001
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
thetyee.ca/News/2026/10...
thetyee.ca
BC Ferries Heads to $1.3-Billion Deal with US-Owned Fuel Supplier | The Tyee
Despite Eby’s ‘buy Canadian’ focus, a firm with MAGA connections is the likely contract winner.
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/30/l... Alt text: Deep blue sky with clouds
theresakishkan.com
Like this
There was something in the pattern of clouds and sky yesterday that I wanted to quilt. I wanted to somehow find that texture in layers of cotton and thin batting, using Japanese thread, and somehow…
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/30/l... Alt text: Deep blue sky with clouds
theresakishkan.com
Like this
There was something in the pattern of clouds and sky yesterday that I wanted to quilt. I wanted to somehow find that texture in layers of cotton and thin batting, using Japanese thread, and somehow…
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A kind of autumn potage...
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A kind of potage...
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/28/t... Alt text: blue and white pottery dish on orange, red, blue, and green Mexican tiles
theresakishkan.com
taking (or making) stock
Enjoying: My fall swims. After a warm and sunny weekend, today is grey and cool. I will swim later this morning, knowing that this might be the final week. (I’ll be away for five days later i…
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/28/t... Alt text: blue and white pottery dish on orange, red, blue, and green Mexican tiles
theresakishkan.com
taking (or making) stock
Enjoying: My fall swims. After a warm and sunny weekend, today is grey and cool. I will swim later this morning, knowing that this might be the final week. (I’ll be away for five days later i…
001
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Yesterday I wrote about wren song and fossils... theresakishkan.com/2026/09/25/o... Alt text: a wooden windowsill with two rocks, a cow vertebrae, a pine cone, a sea urchin test
theresakishkan.com
of wrens and fossils
I woke from the most atmospheric dream. I was walking on Sandcut Beach, west of Sooke, and I was drenched in rain. When I got close to the creek where I used to shower as a girl, camping overnight …
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Among other things, this short piece is the author's reflection, several years on, about her remarkable novella WINTER WREN: read the piece, then see if you can't find the book. Wonderful, both of them! #booksky #envhum
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/25/o... Alt text: fossils, a cow vertebrae, a sea urchin case on a wooden window sill
theresakishkan.com
of wrens and fossils
I woke from the most atmospheric dream. I was walking on Sandcut Beach, west of Sooke, and I was drenched in rain. When I got close to the creek where I used to shower as a girl, camping overnight …
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
www.readlocalbc.ca/2026/09/23/b... (Lovely to see The Art of Looking Back on this list!)
readlocalbc.ca
Books for Renewal: Tending to your inner world | Read Local BC
Move through the seasonal shifts and changes in your life with stories and insights from local voices.Go to full post ...read more
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
@jenfalkner.bsky.social
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Amanda Earl @amandaearl.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Pleased to have another two reviews in the latest issue of @thetemzreview.bsky.social : Jennifer Falkner's Susannah Hall, Her Book @fishgottaswim.bsky.social and Miranda Schreiber's Iris and the Dead @bookhugpress.bsky.social . check out issue 36 here! www.thetemzreview.com/issue-thirty...
thetemzreview.com
Issue Thirty-Six
​ ISSN 2818-811X
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A few gatherings towards a record.
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A few gatherings towards a record.
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A few gatherings.
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/21/q... Alt text: grey lake, low clouds
theresakishkan.com
quotidian: gathering windfalls
Thinking: This morning, swimming in cloud and cool water, I was thinking about the deaths last week of Wendell Berry and Annie Dillard, both of them writers I began to read in high school. I rememb…
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/21/q... Alt text: grey lake, low clouds
theresakishkan.com
quotidian: gathering windfalls
Thinking: This morning, swimming in cloud and cool water, I was thinking about the deaths last week of Wendell Berry and Annie Dillard, both of them writers I began to read in high school. I rememb…
001
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
We made a bird bath! Rhubarb leaf and cement. Just about to fill it but already the dragonflies have discovered it.
Cement leaf-shaped bird bath on cedar stump
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"In June, the end of summer felt so far away. We were feasting on garden greens, anticipating the raspberries, beans, tomatoes, squash, abundance of basil, the tart grapes, the Merton Beauty apples. The arrival of families, lamb on the barbecue, towels on the railings. Today I can't get warm."
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"In June, the end of summer felt so far away. We were feasting on garden greens, anticipating the raspberries, beans, tomatoes, squash, abundance of basil, the tart grapes, the Merton Beauty apples. The arrival of families, lamb on the barbecue, towels on the railings. Today I can't get warm."
144
Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/18/i... Alt text: expanse of lake with a far shore wreathed in low cloud
theresakishkan.com
“I half-wish/I could school my mind, desperate cargo,/to keep a little distance.” (Carl Phillips)
This was the lake yesterday and the dark head is me, swimming. The air was 9 degrees. The water might have been a little warmer but not much. I loved every minute — the long strokes from one …
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/18/i... Alt text: expanse of lake with a far shore wreathed in low cloud
theresakishkan.com
“I half-wish/I could school my mind, desperate cargo,/to keep a little distance.” (Carl Phillips)
This was the lake yesterday and the dark head is me, swimming. The air was 9 degrees. The water might have been a little warmer but not much. I loved every minute — the long strokes from one …
131
Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/15/i... Alt text: two lengths of indigo-dyed fabric on a clothesline
theresakishkan.com
indigo days (2)
My hope with this latest dye work was to rejuvenate two sturdy but stained cotton duvet covers. I wrapped one of them, on the right, with jute string, thinking I would get some eel grass and areas …
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
bcbooklook.com/saying-goodb...
bcbooklook.com
Saying goodbye to Sherry - BC Booklook
Carellin Brooks reviews Sarah Ellis’s My Year in Fairyland, an honest, poignant memoir of love, loss and her partner’s chosen death via MAiD.
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/15/i... Alt text: two lengths of indigo-dyed fabric on a clothesline
theresakishkan.com
indigo days (2)
My hope with this latest dye work was to rejuvenate two sturdy but stained cotton duvet covers. I wrapped one of them, on the right, with jute string, thinking I would get some eel grass and areas …
021
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/14/i... Alt text: two lengths of cotton, tied with jute string, and dipped in indigo dye.
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I love discovering others who've been reading Wendell Berry forever. For me, it was grade 12, 1972, and most of his books are on my shelves still, his voice so clear, his perspective even more necessary now than ever. thetyee.ca/Culture/2026...
thetyee.ca
For Wendell Berry, My North Star | The Tyee
He was America’s rural consciousness. And his death demands more than a moment of reflection.
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/11/t... Alt text: blue cloth with white batiked fish
theresakishkan.com
turn
This morning, the water was quite cool; the sky, grey. Emails come from nearby friends, with photos of grizzlies, a sow and three cubs, below their house, feeding on oysters and clams at low tide. …
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/11/t... Alt text: blue cloth with white batiked fish
theresakishkan.com
turn
This morning, the water was quite cool; the sky, grey. Emails come from nearby friends, with photos of grizzlies, a sow and three cubs, below their house, feeding on oysters and clams at low tide. …
001
Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
You need to read THE ART OF LOOKING BACK, by @fishgottaswim.bsky.social. This memoir offers a wise and nearly unflinching look at the decades of consequences that can flow from being looked at as a young woman, and it's irreplaceable. #booksky 1/3 boughtbooks.blogspot.com/2026/09/ther...
boughtbooks.blogspot.com
Theresa Kishkan, The Art of Looking Back
Let me do the thumbnail first, because I've enough to say that frontloading the reviewiest bit about Theresa Kishkan's The Art of Looking Ba...
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Hey, @robertmoor.com, big congratulations this morning!
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"When I listened for the school bus, then, and this morning, I was listening to the passage of time, wasn’t I? The bus taking my children away from me, into the world, though for some years it brought them back again. Until it didn’t."
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"When I listened for the school bus, then, and this morning, I was listening to the passage of time, wasn’t I? The bus taking my children away from me, into the world, though for some years it brought them back again. Until it didn’t."
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/08/t... Alt text: sunlight on the far shore of a lake, two small islands in the foreground
theresakishkan.com
the school bus didn’t stop
This morning when I went outside to feed the Steller’s jays who were waiting for their sunflower seeds, I heard the school bus on the highway below our house. It hasn’t stopped at our d…
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/08/t... Alt text: sunlight on the far shore of a lake, two small islands in the foreground
theresakishkan.com
the school bus didn’t stop
This morning when I went outside to feed the Steller’s jays who were waiting for their sunflower seeds, I heard the school bus on the highway below our house. It hasn’t stopped at our d…
011
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
As Fish Go Blind, Experts Say BC Isn't Prepared for Droughts via @thetyee.ca thetyee.ca/News/2026/09...
thetyee.ca
As Fish Go Blind, Experts Say BC Isn’t Prepared for Droughts | The Tyee
With fish struggling in the Salmon River, flip-flopping on emergency orders suggests a lack of preplanning, experts say.
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
When your book finds an ideal reader...
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Thank you, @rwpickard.bsky.social, for such a thoughtful and generous review of The Art of Looking Back. boughtbooks.blogspot.com/2026/09/ther...
boughtbooks.blogspot.com
Theresa Kishkan, The Art of Looking Back
Let me do the thumbnail first, because I've enough to say that frontloading the reviewiest bit about Theresa Kishkan's The Art of Looking Ba...
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Kelly B @kellyblack.ca · 07/09/2026
3 years since we lost #JimmyBuffett. I wrote a little thing in 2018 about what his music means to my family www.kellyblack.ca/stories/2018...
kellyblack.ca
We are Going to Jimmy Buffett’s Funeral — KB
Last fall my wife, dad, and I took a quick trip from Vancouver Island to Washington State for the celebration of life of a long-time family friend, Dennis. Dennis and my dad, Jim, met in the early 197...
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Thank you, @rwpickard.bsky.social, for such a thoughtful and generous review of The Art of Looking Back. boughtbooks.blogspot.com/2026/09/ther...
boughtbooks.blogspot.com
Theresa Kishkan, The Art of Looking Back
Let me do the thumbnail first, because I've enough to say that frontloading the reviewiest bit about Theresa Kishkan's The Art of Looking Ba...
132
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/06/t... Alt text: a clump of big-leaf maple samaras, chartreuse and magenta, on a grey rock
theresakishkan.com
the samaras are falling
This morning, walking back to the car after my swim (12 degrees, a kingfisher skimming the surface of the lake, one island still dark, the other bright with early sun), I stopped to pick up this cl…
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
theresakishkan.com/2026/09/04/s... Alt text: colander of green grapes, colander of red tomatoes
theresakishkan.com
September song: a still life
But it’s a long, long while from May to DecemberAnd the days grow short when you reach SeptemberAnd the autumn weather turns the leaves to flameAnd I haven’t got time for waiting game I…
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
thetyee.ca/Tyeenews/202...
thetyee.ca
The Tyee Podcast: Why We All Win with the Cowichan Decision | The Tyee
After a year of panic about property rights in Richmond, author Arno Kopecky explains why BC’s landmark court decision is something to celebrate.
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
www.thebcreview.ca/2026/09/03/3...
thebcreview.ca
Troubled relationship, celebrated artist couple | The British Columbia Review
Anything but a Still Life: The Art and Lives of Molly Lamb and Bruno Bobakby Nathan M. Greenfield
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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
When someone sends the most beautiful card and handmade booklet to you. (Thank you so much, @calmspin.bsky.social)
Cards on terracotta tiles
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Reposted by Theresa Kishkan
Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Some quiet thoughts for the end of August. (And RIP, dear Wendell Berry.)
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