SOUTH AWAY

South Away is a travel memoir, a road story, and an homage to the tales of adventure—from The Hobbit to her father and grandmother's true-to-life bedtime stories—that inspired her youth. The travel takes place over a four-month period in the fall of 2009, when, alongside her sister and former rival, she set out to pedal the Pacific Coast, from Terrace, British Columbia, to the tip of the Baja Peninsula. With much enthusiasm but little cycling experience, they face the dangers and hardships of the road, from rough weather to perilous highway, learning from their missteps and seeking out minimalist pleasures along the way.

Accompanying the physical travel is an inner journey, composed of flashbacks and reflections, wherein she contemplates past life events, in particular, the role of family in shaping her current character, as well as a dilemma she has been puzzled by since childhood: how do you create a satisfying life while balancing risk and adventure?

This memoir will appeal to an audience of women, young and old, who dream outside the horizons of what others deem possible. Women are vastly underrepresented in the cycling community, both as commuters and elite athletes, and the author hopes that her story of female comradery and adventure will light a fire in the hearts of other women who wish to travel, explore, and experience the world, by bicycle or other means.

Meaghan Hackinen is a bicycle enthusiast, ex-roller derby competitor, and writer originally from Vancouver, British Columbia. Her two-wheeled adventures have taken her from Haida Gwaii to Mexico's high plateaus, across Canada, and most recently, across America as part of the 2017 Trans Am Bike Race. In 2016, A graduate from the University of Saskatchewan's MFA in Writing program, her fiction and non-fiction prose explores relationships, experiences on the road, and encounters with wild places. Her work has appeared in Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing, Cargo Lit Mag, The Fieldstone Review, Momentum Mag, One Throne, untethered, and Poetry All Over the Floor, a Tonight It's Poetry anthology. Her essay "Where the Tide Rushes Between" was a 2016National Magazine Awards finalist.