W Café — Thick Skin: Field Notes From A Sister In The Brotherhood

Join Hilary Peach — author of Thick Skin: Field Notes From a Sister in the Brotherhood. Plumbing the secret language and hidden culture of boilermaking, Peach brings two decades of experience as one of the few women welders in the Boilermakers Union. Drawing from journals, field notes, and razor-sharp observation, she will read from and discuss stories that travel from West Coast shipyards and British Columbia pulp mills to Alberta’s tar sands, Ontario’s steel belt, and the colossal power stations of the eastern U.S. Her work—equal parts tenderness and ferocity—illuminates an unseen industrial world and the human lives shaped within it. Perfect for readers, tradespeople, and anyone curious about labor, craft, and the edges where ordinary life becomes strange and luminous. Join us for an intimate conversation, audience Q&A, and book signing.