After heartbreaking setback, woman gets book published

The story of how Corby-Ann Fehr got her book of poetry published is both heart-breaking and heart-warming.

The first publisher she met stole her money, but later, at a poetry symposium, a fellow author who heard her story decided to pay for her publishing costs. 

Fehr, a Kamloops woman with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) who is known in Jasper because she once worked for CN, is selling a book of her poetry as a way to support herself and raise research funds for the disease.

She grew up in Blue River, BC, a town about two hours southwest of Jasper. In 1993 she was on the gold-medal winning luge team in the BC Winter Olympics. 

Jasperite Terry Johnston has a stack of the books and is selling them on Fehr’s behalf. Black and white copies of Whisper: A Collection of Poetry, are $15, and colour ones are $30. Part of the proceeds from every sale goes to the MS Society of Canada, and the rest goes to supporting Fehr.

“Her mom told me recently Fehr can’t speak at all,” Johnston said. Fehr’s mother Lolly was a cook in Blue River for decades, Johnston said, and was like a mother to him and his colleagues who worked on the railroad.

Johnston, who has known Fehr for 35 years, since she was about five years old, remembers her as a live-wire. “She was always the real life of the party,” he said. “It’s hard to believe she’d be speechless and stuck in a wheelchair.” 

“It’s just what I would do for anybody I care about, if I can help her in some way,” Johnston said.

Anyone interested in purchasing a copy of the book can reach Johnston at 780-852-4135.