"Winter House" tells the story of a mother recounting and teaching her daughter the French words that her parents taught her. She differentiates the way both her parents speak and how that reflects their individual personalities. The speaker also recognizes that translations lack the connotations and love that have become so apparent to her as she's grown up and regrets to inform her daughter that those broken words are all that she has to offer as a liasion to her grandparents.

Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang is a teacher, children's writer and a poet with her poetry having won the Arc Magazine Reader's Choice for Poem of the Year. Her poetry book Sweet Devilry (2011) won the Gerald Lampert Award as well as Status Update (2013) being nominated for the Pat Lowther Award. Currently, Tsiang is the Creative Director for Poetry in Voice and the Poetry Editor at Arc Poetry Magazine.