Suzanna Arundhati Roy is an Indian author best known for her novel The God of Small Things (1997), which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the biggest-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. She is also a political activist involved in human rights and environmental causes.
Zara Mohamed Abdulmajid, mononymously known as Iman, is a Somali born fashion model, actress and entrepreneur. She is noted for her philanthropic work. She is the widow of English rock musician David Bowie, whom she married in 1992.
Sandra Louise Birdsell, CM is a Canadian novelist and short story writer of Métis and Mennonite heritage.
Myrna Kostash is a Canadian writer and journalist. She has published several non-fiction books and written for many Canadian magazines including Chatelaine.
Helen Mary Caldicott is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, and military action in general.
Amrita Pritamlisten (help·info) was an Indian novelist, essayist and poet, who wrote in Punjabi and Hindi. She is considered the first prominent woman Punjabi poet, novelist, and essayist, and the leading 20th-century poet of the Punjabi language, who is equally loved on both sides of the India-Pakistan border. With a career spanning over six decades, she produced over 100 books of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of Punjabi folk songs and an autobiography that were translated into several Indian and foreign languages.
Alanis Obomsawin, is an American Canadian Abenaki filmmaker, singer, artist and activist primarily known for her documentaries. Born in New Hampshire, United States and raised primarily in Quebec, Canada, she has written and directed many National Film Board of Canada documentaries on First Nations issues.
Ellen Muriel Deason, known professionally as Kitty Wells, was an American pioneering female country music singer. She broke down a female barrier in country music with her 1952 hit recording, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" which also made her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts, and turned her into the first female country superstar. “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” would also be her first of several pop cross over hits. Wells is the only female artist to be awarded top female vocalist awards for 14 consecutive years. Her chart topping hits continued until the mid-1960s, paving the way for and inspiring a long list of female country singers who came to prominence in the 1960s.
Grace Paley was an American short story author, poet, teacher, and political activist.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, OC is a Canadian Inuit activist. She has been a political representative for Inuit at the regional, national and international levels, most recently as International Chair for Inuit Circumpolar Council. Watt-Cloutier has worked on a range of social and environmental issues affecting Inuit, most recently, persistent organic pollutants and global warming. She has received numerous awards and honors for her work, and has been featured in a number of documentaries and profiled by journalists from all media. Watt-Cloutier sits as an advisor to Canada's Ecofiscal Commission. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
Thandi Klaasen was a jazz musician from Sophiatown, Gauteng. She was the mother of singer Lorraine Klaasen.
Edward Bernard Grothus was an American machinist and technician at the Los Alamos National Laboratory during the 1950s and 1960s. In later life he became the owner of a surplus store which he used as a base for peace and anti-nuclear activism.
Eleanor Mary Josaitis was the co-founder of Focus: HOPE. She was engaged in building the legacy of the civil rights organization. For many years, she was the Associate Director of Focus: HOPE. Upon Father Cunningham's death in 1997, she became the Executive Director, and later the CEO. In 2006, she turned over the day-to-day operation to a new leadership team in order to focus her efforts on fund raising. She died of peritoneal cancer on August 9, 2011 in Livonia, Michigan.
Carrie Barefoot Dickerson was an American activist who led citizen efforts to stop construction of the proposed Black Fox Nuclear Power Plant in Oklahoma.
Rosalie Bertell was an American scientist, author, environmental activist, epidemiologist, and Catholic nun. Bertell was a sister of the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, best known for her work in the field of ionizing radiation. A dual citizen of Canada and the United States, she worked in environmental health since 1970.
Jeanne Jordan is an American independent director, producer and editor. She was nominated for an Academy Award and has received the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival among many other awards.
Maisie Dobbs is a mystery by Jacqueline Winspear published in 2003. Set in England between 1910 and 1929, it features the title character Maisie Dobbs, a private investigator. Generally well received by critics, mostly because of Maisie's quirky character, the novel was nominated for several awards and received the 2003 Agatha Award for Best First Novel. It is the first in the Maisie Dobbs series.
Jo-Ann Episkenew was a Métis woman originally from Manitoba, though she lived in Saskatchewan for much of her life. She held a Masters of Business Administration and a Honours Certificate M.A. from the University of Regina. In 2006 she completed a Ph.D at Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University in Greifswald, Germany, the first Indigenous Canadian to receive a Ph.D from a German university.
