Butterfly Wings traces the history of the Yates family from Edinburgh, Scotland, after it moved to Canada in the 1950s. The perspective is that of Alan J. Yates, who started a career in journalism in Montreal and later moved to broadcasting, spending more than thirty years in various capacities with the CBC and other broadcasters. The work not only traces that transition to Canadian life and the career embarked upon, but features short biographies of key members of the Yates family in Eastern Canada, focusing on Yates' first wife, Ida Panzini, from whom the title of the book is taken.

Ida, who died in her early fifties from a brain tumour felt there was something akin to the delicacy and vulnerability of butterfly wings in the unpredictable process of forming family and other close personal relationships. She was amazed by how mysteriously and painstakingly those relationships were formed and miraculously survived and by how they could be so easily bruised or even terminated by the simplest and often most unsuspecting acts or words. This is not just a family history but a study of the family as an organic process.

Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, Alan J. Yates moved to Canada in his late teens, where he pursued a career in journalism and broadcasting, much of it with the CBC. He also pursued an academic path on the side, with graduate degrees in Communications from McGill University in Montreal and taught Communications at the University of Ottawa. Now retired, he lives in Ottawa.

Alan J. Yates' profile page