A sequel to First Gear: A Motorcycle Memoir, Horses in the Sand is a collection of stories that document a queer Métis woman's journey from her sparse beginnings as a child to becoming a tradeswoman, teacher, and artist. With courage, humour, and frank honesty, the stories describe what it was like to grow up as a girl who was starkly different from "normal" and how "coming out" became a lifelong process of self-acceptance and changing identities. Potvin's tales also speak to the difficulties in participating in and maintaining healthy adult relationships when childhood foundations are rooted in violence and trauma, culminating with a triumphant account of fulfilling a long-time dream of buying land and building a home with her own hands. Ultimately, this memoir is a celebration of making art, telling stories, and of finding her birth father, a family of half siblings, and an Indigenous community whose presence she had always felt, but to which she never knew she belonged.

Tradeswoman, artist, and teacher, Lorrie Potvin, is a queerish two-spirited mix of French, Finnish. and Algonquin ancestry belonging to the Mattawa / North Bay Algonquin First Nation. Working and teaching in the trades for over thirty years, Potvin holds an Inter-Provincial Red Seal in Auto Body Repair and Refinishing from Algonquin College, and a diploma in Technological Education from the Faculty of Education, Queen's University, with additional qualifications in Manufacturing and Special Education. She lives on a lake in Godfrey, Ontario, north of Kingston, in the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee, where she has spent twenty-five years building her home and creating art made of stone, wood, hide, and steel. Her first book, First Gear: A Motorcycle Memoir , was published in 2015.

Lorrie Potvin's profile page

"Lorrie's stories had me laughing and crying. As an Indigenous woman who has had similar feelings and experiences I found her candor and humor refreshing. Stories from our women are certainly needed in a field once dominated by men's stories."
-Beverly Little Thunder, Two-Spirit Lakota Elder, author of the memoir One Bead at a Time (2016

"Here's rare and clear-eyed insight, without self-pity, into the complex life of a woman unafraid to have non-traditional dreams and to follow them. What a pleasure to read the story of a woman who has the courage to be all she can be, in the ways she wants to be it, with respect for the people around her and for her trade, but taking no guff. Thank you Lorrie Potvin!"
-Kate Braid, author of Journeywoman: Swinging a Hammer in a Man's World and Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman

"Because Lorrie's writing about teaching and about building the house that she and Paula now call home rings so true, it makes me trust the rest- the stories about worlds that are not mine. This is what makes the work so powerful. It is not just evocative writing, full of beauty and metaphor: it is authentic writing. The details in the particulars illuminate a path which, if we follow, we just might learn to live with all our relations. I am convinced that if we are ever going to mitigate the climate crisis and heal the deep and growing divides in our country, we will only do so when we come together as a truly inclusive community. How to do that” By listening, by forming friendships, by reaching out to those who, on the surface, may not seem to have much in common with us. That is the gift of Horses in the Sand. Read it. Learn about Lorrie and her struggles and triumphs, and in the process, learn more about who you are, and what we must all do to thrive in the tender years to come. With all our relations."
-Rena Upitis, FRSC, Founding Director, Wintergreen Studios