Sam McKegney is a settler scholar of Indigenous literatures and is Professor and Head of the Department of English at Queen's University in the territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe Peoples. He has published two books-Masculindians: Conversations about Indigenous Manhood and Magic Weapons: Aboriginal Writers Remaking Community after Residential School-and articles on such topics as masculinity, environmental kinship, prison writing, and mythologies of hockey.
Tomson Highway enjoys an international career as a playwright, novelist, and pianist/songwriter. He is considered one of Canada's foremost Indigenous voices. He is best known for his award-winning plays, The Rez Sisters (1986), Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing (1989), Rose (2000), and Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout (2005), as well as his critically acclaimed novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998). Winner of the 2021 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction for his memoir Permanent Astonishment, he lives in Gatineau, Quebec.
Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, PhD., (he/him/his) is Anishinaabe (St. Peter's/Little Peguis) and an associate professor at the University of Manitoba. He regularly speaks and writes about Indigenous issues for national and international media outlets and his writing appears bi weekly in the Winnipeg Free Press. He has also published short stories in books like The Exile Edition of Native Canadian Fiction and Drama and graphic novels like This Place: 150 Years Retold. He is the 2018 recipient of a National Newspaper Award for best Canadian Columnist and also was named 2019 Peace Educator of the Year by the Peace and Justice Studies Association at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Niigaan is co-editor of the award-winning Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water and Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories and the editorial director of The Debwe Series (published by HighWater Press).
Basil Johnston has written several books ranging from folk tales and humorous stories to works on the Ojibwa language. After St. Peter Claver's School, he studied history and English at Loyola Collage, Montreal, and attended teachers' college. He is a lecturer in the Ethnology Department of the Royal Ontario Museum.
Dana Claxton is an acclaimed artist and filmmaker. Her practice investigates indigenous beauty, the socio-political and spiritual. She mentors indigenous youth, emerging artists and filmmakers. She is Head and Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory with the University of British Columbia.
Daniel David Moses is "a coroner of the theatre who slices open the human heart to reveal the fear, hatred and love that have eaten away at it. His dark play… can leave its audience shaking with emotion." (Kate Taylor, The Globe and Mail, about The Indian Medicine Shows). Moses, a Delaware from the Six Nations lands on the Grand River, lives in Toronto, where he writes, and in Kingston, where he teaches in the Department of Drama at Queen's University.
Sky Dancer Louise Bernice Halfe is nêhiyaw poet raised on the Saddle Lake Reserve in Alberta. She has travelled extensively nationally and internationally both as a poet and keynote speaker. She served as poet Laureate in Saskatchewan for two years and was given an honorary Ph.D. from Wilfrid Laurier University. In 2017 Halfe was awarded the Latner's Writers' Trust Poetry Prize for an exceptional body of work in the field of poetry.
Kim Anderson is a Metis writer and Associate Professor at the University of Guelph.
Warren Cariou was born in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan into a family of Métis and European heritage. He has published works of fiction, criticism, and memoir about Indigenous cultures and environmental issues in Canada. He directs the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture at the University of Manitoba.
Alison Calder has published widely on Canadian prairie literature and culture, including critical editions of Settlers of the Marsh and Over Prairie Trails by Frederick Philip Grove, and Desire Never Leaves: The Poetry of Tim Lilburn. Her poetry collections are Wolf Tree and In the Tiger Park, and with Jeanette Lynes she is the co-author of Ghost Works: Improvisations in Letters and Poems. She teaches Canadian literature and creative writing at the University of Manitoba.
Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee Nation) is Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture at the University of British Columbia. A widely published scholar in Indigenous literary studies, he is the co-editor of the groundbreaking Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature (2014) and author of a Cherokee literary history, a cultural history of badgers, and an Indigenous epic fantasy series.
Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is a member of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, on the Saugeen Peninsula in Ontario. Kateri is a poet, writer, spoken word artist, Indigenous arts advocate, publisher, and educator. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, teaching creative writing, Indigenous literatures, and oral traditions in the English Department. She is the founder and publisher of Kegedonce Press, Ontario’s longest-running Indigenous literary publisher. Her publications encompass fiction, non-fiction, radio plays, television and film, libretti, a graphic novel, spoken word CDs, and two collections of poetry.
Richard Van Camp (he/him/his) is a proud member of the Tłı̨chǫ Nation from Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. He is the author of more than 25 books including The Lesser Blessed (also a feature film), the Eisner Award-nominated graphic novel A Blanket of Butterflies (with Scott B. Henderson), and Three Feathers (also a feature film). He is a contributor to the groundbreaking graphic novel anthology This Place: 150 Years Retold. Richard is also the author of five collections of short stories, including Night Moves, and six baby books, including the award-winning Little You (with Julie Flett).
Joanne Arnott (Métis) A Métis/mixed-blood writer, originally from Manitoba.
Neal McLeod grew up Cree on the James Smith Reserve in Saskatchewan and studied at the Swedish Art Academy at Umeå. His 2005 exhibition au fil de mes jours (in my lifetime), at Le Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, was remounted at the Museum of Civilization in 2007. He has two books of poetry—Songs to Kill a Wîhtikow (2005) and Gabriel’s Beach (2008). Cree Narrative Memory (2007) was nominated for book of the year at the Anskohk McNally Aboriginal Literature Awards. He teaches Indigenous studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.
GREGORY SCOFIELD is Métis of Cree, Scottish and European-Immigrant descent whose ancestry can be traced to the Métis community of Kinosota, Manitoba. He has taught Creative Writing and First Nations and Métis Literature at Laurentian University, Brandon University, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and the Alberta University of the Arts. He currently holds the position of Associate professor in the Department of Writing at the University of Victoria. Scofield won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 1994 for his debut collection, The Gathering: Stones for the Medicine Wheel, and has since published seven further volumes of poetry including, Witness, I am. He has served as writer-in-residence at the University of Manitoba, the University of Winnipeg, and Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is the recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012), and most recently the Writers’ Trust of Canada Latner Poetry Prize (2016) that is awarded to a mid-career poet in recognition of a remarkable body of work. Further to writing and teaching, Scofield is also a skilled bead-worker, and he creates in the medium of traditional Métis arts. He continues to assemble a collection of mid to late 19th century Cree-Métis artifacts, which are used as learning and teaching pieces. Scofield’s first memoir Thunder Through My Veins (Doubleday Canada/Anchor Books) was re-published Fall 2019.
