South of Centre

By Edie Ayala

A young woman places a secret marker at an old man's grave, but does she really understand the significance of what he has left behind?

Clorinda is a solitary young woman who freelances as a seamstress in a small desert town where things rarely change. Friendless and eccentric, she dresses in her 'calendar wardrobe' and she collects dona

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stories with Character
• Release date: Apr 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9780988003255

Edie Ayala

“Our stories are our most valuable asset. They define us. They are our legacy.” Edie Ayala is a baby boomer from a small logging town in British Columbia. As a girl, she once broke into a neighbour’s house to play on their typewriter. She was the creative fort-builder, the abandoned mine-shaft explorer and the tree climber. She has never lost this spirit of curiosity and the search for the small things that might change a day… or a life. Just before Y2K, she made a trip to South America and it was a turning point. Married to a Chilean from the Atacama region, they decided to make Santiago, Chile their home and they’ve been there ever since. Their grown children are all settled in different cities in Canada and the UK. Edie writes character-driven novels. Her first, South of Centre is a saga sent in nothern Chile in and around the time of the Pinochet regime. With all of its myths and superstitions, it seeks to get to the bottom of various tangled family relationships. The second Hard Bed Hotel is a humorous love story where confusion between the living and the dead takes you on an eventful romp through Santiago’s more ‘popular’ neighborhoods. Her third novel, Threads takes a hard look at the global business of fast fashion. Two women on opposite ends of the globe are connected through love and loss.