Come meet three authors representing some of the most original and transcendent approaches to writing today. Each of these Indigenous writers’ works combine depth of ideas with magnetic, transfixing prose. Bestseller, Griffin Poetry Prize-winner, and literature professor Billy-Ray Belcourt is playful and brilliant in his prose about Indigenous love and loneliness in the short story collection Coexistence. Giller Prize-longlisted author Conor Kerr returns with Prairie Edge, a propulsive crime thriller that’s a critique of modern activism and a bold conception of what “Land Back” can really mean. Amanda Peters’ anticipated debut Waiting for the Long Night Moon describes the Indigenous experience from an astonishingly wide spectrum in time and place. Discover compelling fiction while getting to know three of the top writers in the country. Moderated by Carleigh Baker, author of Last Woman.
Presented in partnership with Talking Stick Festival.
This event is open to everyone, and has been curated with the Pro-D day for teachers in mind. Teachers may be interested in the following information. This event is also suitable for students in grades 10–12.
Themes: Pro-D, literary fiction, indigenous storytelling
Curriculum Connections: Creative Writing 10–12, Literary Studies 10-12, Contemporary Indigenous Studies 12
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Event Participants:
CARLEIGH BAKER is an nêhiyaw âpihtawikosisân /Icelandic writer who lives as a guest on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwu7mesh, and səl̓ilwəta peoples. Her work has appeared in Best Canadian Essays, The Short Story Advent Calendar, and The Journey Prize Stories. She also writes reviews for the Globe and Mail and the Literary Review of Canada. Her debut story collection, Bad Endings (Anvil, 2017) won the City of Vancouver Book Award, and was also a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Award, the Emerging Indigenous Voices Award for fiction, and the BC Book Prize Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award.
BILLY-RAY BELCOURT (he/him) is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He won the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize for his collection, This Wound Is a World. His memoir, A History of My Brief Body, won the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. Belcourt is Assistant Professor of Indigenous Creative Writing at UBC.
CONOR KERR is a Métis/Ukrainian writer living in Edmonton. A member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, he is descended from the Lac Ste. Anne Metis and the Papaschase Cree Nation. His Ukrainian family are settlers in Treaty 4 and 6 territories in Saskatchewan. He grew up in Saskatoon, Edmonton, and other prairie towns and cities. In 2022 he was named one of CBC’s Writers to Watch. He is the author of the poetry collections An Explosion of Feathers and Old Gods, as well as the novel Avenue of Champions, which was shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, longlisted for the 2022 Giller Prize and won the 2022 ReLIT award. Conor is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta where he teaches creative writing.
AMANDA PETERS is a writer of Mi'kmaq and settler ancestry. Her debut novel, The Berry Pickers, was a critically acclaimed bestseller in Canada. Her work has appeared in the Antigonish Review, Grain, the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Dalhousie Review and Filling Station. She is the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for unpublished prose and a participant in the 2021 Writers’ Trust Rising Stars Program. Peters has a certificate in creative writing from the University of Toronto, and she is a graduate of the master of fine arts program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Amanda Peters lives and writes in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, with her fur babies, Holly and Pook.
