Franke James

ALLi Author Member

“Nobody really knows what life will throw at them. And how they’ll change as a result,” says Franke James. She is an activist, an artist and an author. She’s fought City Hall to build a green driveway (and won); been blacklisted by the Canadian Government for her climate change art—and turned the government’s silencing into international news. Her latest book, Freeing Teresa: A True Story about My Sister and Me, is about choosing her sister’s freedom over her family. Franke helped her younger sister get out of a nursing home. Then all hell broke loose. The two sisters had to stand together—against their siblings, the medical system, and the police—to defend the right to be free.

Franke and her husband, Billiam James, helped Teresa regain her decision-making rights and get a public apology from the Ontario Minister of Health. Midwest Book Review said, "The result is more than a memoir: it’s a testimony to how ‘tickets to freedom’ are gained through fighting and love."

The memoir has won two Gold Awards from The Human Relations Indie Book Awards for Family Challenges and Special Needs and two Silver Awards for Leadership and Inspirational. In 2015, Franke won PEN Canada’s Ken Filkow Prize for her “tenacity in uncovering an abuse of power” and BCCLA’s Liberty Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2014.

For Franke, the diverse issues in her books, "Freeing Teresa," "Banned on the Hill," "Bothered by My Green Conscience," and "Dear Office-Politics" are all connected by the need to speak up and take action.

Franke lives in Vancouver, BC, with her husband and her sister, Teresa.