With nothing but her backpack and an open-ended ticket, Torontonian Aly Coy spends five years travelling Western Europe. She is faced with a decision: to stay in a tumultuous relationship homesteading in The Spanish Pyrenees, or go back to a life she had given up as a young professional in Toronto. She attempts to live off-the-grid but finds herself planning an escape from an emotionally and verbally abusive partner. The reader travels through time and space to when Aly has little-to-no money, works in tourism, learns how to garden, lives on a commune, dumpster dives, discovers herbal medicine, and falls for all the wrong men and women. In her heartfelt travel memoir, unpacked, Aly Coy goes into raw detail about her sexually charged, sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbing, life abroad.

Finding Home Within: Sanctuary and Solace During Tumultuous Times is the second volume published by the Salt Spring Island Circles of Women. This current collection reflects the collective experiences and creative challenges faced during the COVID-19 Pandemic. As we mourn the erosion of vital social connections, as well as the deaths of two women in our circles, we gather strength from within and discover ways to deepen intimacy and compassion within ourselves and amongst one another.

Through our stories, essays and poems, we honour the life-affirming connections which sustain us through meeting together (even virtually) and sharing our lives and our writings, alone and together. Our current ages span between our thirties and eighties. We share with our readers our vulnerabilities and resilience as we continue to engage our creativity, co-create community and negotiate life during these turbulent times.