Bobbi Lee Maracle was an Indigenous Canadian writer and academic of the Stó꞉lō nation. Born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, she left formal education after grade 8 to travel across North America, attending Simon Fraser University on her return to Canada. Her first book, an autobiography called Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel, was published in 1975. She wrote fiction, non-fiction, and criticism and held various academic positions. Maracle's work focused on the lives of Indigenous people, particularly women, in contemporary North America. As an influential writer and speaker, Maracle fights for those oppressed by sexism, racism, and capitalist exploitation.
Jeannette Christine Armstrong is a Canadian author, educator, artist, and activist. She was born and grew up on the Penticton Indian reserve in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, and fluently speaks both the Syilx and English language. Armstrong has lived on the Penticton Native Reserve for most of her life and has raised her two children there. In 2013, she was appointed Canada Research Chair in Okanagan Indigenous Knowledge and Philosophy.
Paula Gunn Allen was a Native American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's people, the Laguna Pueblo and childhood years. She drew from its oral traditions for her fiction poetry and also wrote numerous essays on its themes. She edited four collections of Native American traditional stories and contemporary works and wrote two biographies of Native American women.
Marie Clements is a Canadian Métis playwright, performer, director, producer and screenwriter. Marie was founding artistic director of urban ink productions, and is currently co-artistic director of red diva projects, and director of her new film company Working Pajama Lab Entertainment. Clements lives on Galiano Island, British Columbia. As a writer Marie has worked in a variety of mediums including theatre, performance, film, multi-media, radio, and television.
Rebecca Belmore D.F.A. is an interdisciplinary Anishinaabekwe artist who is notable for politically conscious and socially aware performance and installation work. She is Ojibwe and member of Obishikokaang. Belmore currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.
(Barbara) Anne Cameron was a Canadian novelist, poet, screenwriter, short story and children's book writer.
Carol Lee Sanchez is an American poet, visual artist, essayist, and teacher.
Annette Arkeketa is a writer, poet, and playwright, and a member of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma. She has conducted professional workshops in these fields, in addition to the creative process, script consulting, and documentary film making. She directed Native American film studies at Comanche Nation College.
Ivan E. Coyote is a Canadian spoken word performer, writer, and LGBT advocate. Coyote has won many accolades for their collections of short stories, novels, and films. They also visit schools to tell stories and give writing workshops. The CBC has called Coyote a "gender-bending author who loves telling stories and performing in front of a live audience." Coyote is non-binary and uses singular they pronouns. Many of Coyote's stories are about gender, identity, and social justice. Coyote currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Leo Yerxa is a Canadian visual artist, medallist, and writer. As an illustrator of children's picture books he won the Governor General's Award in 2006. He lived in Ottawa, Ontario, then. He died on September 1, 2017.
Mary Anne Barkhouse is a jeweller and sculptor residing in Haliburton, Ontario, Canada. She belongs to the Nimpkish band of the Kwakiutl First Nation.
Spiderwoman Theater is an American, Indigenous women's performance troupe that blends traditional art forms with Western theater. To date, it is the longest running Native American theater company in the United States. Their mission was to present exceptional theater performance, and to provide theatrical training and education in an urban Indigenous performance practice. Spiderwoman theater was an early feminist theatre group that sprung out of the feminist movement in the 1970s. They questioned gender roles, cultural stereotypes, sexual and economic oppression. It was founded in 1976, the core of the group is formed by sisters Muriel Miguel, Gloria Miguel, and Lisa Mayo. It was the first Native American women's theater troupe and is named after the Spider Grandmother from Hopi mythology.
Loretta Sarah Todd is a Canadian Indigenous film director. Her first dramatic feature, Monkey Beach, is based on the iconic novel by Eden Robinson, recently launched to a strong audience and critical response, screening at TIFF Industry Selects, opening the Vancouver International Film Festival and sweeping the Drama awards at the American Indian and Red Nation Film Festivals in the USA, including Best Film and Best Director. With international awards adding up, Monkey Beach was the #1 Canadian film for 4 weeks at Cineplex and Landmark Theatres.
Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) (1961) is a Canadian playwright, director, actor, and educator based out of Saskatchewan, Canada. She was born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. She has contributed significantly to the creation and performance of Indigenous theatre in Canada.
Cheryl L'Hirondelle is a Canadian multidisciplinary media artist, performer, and award-winning musician. She is of Métis/Cree (non-status/treaty), French, German, and Polish descent. Her work is tied to her cultural heritage. She explores a Cree worldview or nêhiyawin through body, mind, emotions, and spirit; examining what it means to live in contemporary space and time.
Cherie Dimaline is an Indigenous Canadian writer from the Georgian Bay Métis Nation, a part of Métis Nation of Ontario. She has written a variety of award-winning novels and other acclaimed stories and articles. She is most noted for her 2017 young adult novel The Marrow Thieves, which explores the continued colonial exploitation of Indigenous people.
Skeena Reece is a Canadian First Nations artist whose multi-disciplinary practice includes such genres as performance art, "sacred clowning," songwriting, and video art. Reece is of Cree, Tsimshian, Gitksan, and Métis descent.
Sharron Proulx-Turner was a two-spirit Métis writer. She investigated themes of Métis storytelling and was recognized as a mentor to other writers.
Lenore Keeshig-Tobias is an Anishinabe storyteller, poet, scholar, and journalist and a major advocate for Indigenous writers in Canada. She is a member of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation. She was one of the central figures in the debates over cultural appropriation in Canadian literature in the 1990s. Along with Daniel David Moses and Tomson Highway, she was a founding member of the Indigenous writers' collective, Committee to Reestablish the Trickster.
Larry Loyie (Oskiniko) was an award-winning Canadian author and playwright. He was known for several children's books about his residential school experience as a child and for his plays. His books were written with his partner Constance Brissenden. In 1993 the couple founded the Living Traditions Writers Group, to encourage Indigenous writers in Vancouver, British Columbia.
