Born and raised in British Columbia, Jessica McDiarmid knew from a young age that she wanted to write about tough subjects in difficult places. Around age 14, McDiarmid devoured Oakland Ross’s A Fire on the Mountains, a compilation of true-life stories about the extraordinary circumstances in which people live and thrive in 17 global hotspots, […] More »

On Christmas Eve, 1989, Charles Taylor’s band of rebels stormed the small border village of Butuo, Liberia, taking over the police station and sparking a civil war. Chief Inspector Morris Gonylee waves dismissively at the state of ruin the station now lies in, a common sight in a nation struggling to rebuild from this 14-year […] More »