Members of the LodgePole Arts Alliance took part in events at the literary arts festival in Kingston, Ontario in the Fall of 2023 and 2024. Many thanks to Aara Macauley for welcoming our group!
Events at the 2023 Kingston WritersFest!
Cracks in the Foundation: Alicia Elliot in conversation with Tricia Knowles
Saturday, September 30th
Alicia Elliot, a brilliant Tuscarora writer representing the Six Nations of the Grand River, has earned widespread acclaim for her work. Her words have graced the pages of renowned publications like The Malahat Review, Room, Grain, CBC, The Globe and Mail, and Maclean’s, cementing her position as a formidable voice in the Canadian literary landscape. As a creative nonfiction editor at The Fiddlehead, associate nonfiction editor at Little Fiction | Big Truths, and a consulting editor with The New Quarterly, Elliot’s dedication to nurturing the literary community is evident. Her remarkable essay “A Mind Spread Out on the Ground” was even honoured with a Gold award at the National Magazine Awards in 2017. In Brantford, Ontario, Alicia Elliot shares her life with her loving husband and child.
Angela Sterritt, Beneath the Surface: Hope and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls
Sept 30, 2023
“She could have been me.” Award-winning Gitxsan investigative journalist Angela Sterritt spoke with Tina Munroe about Unbroken. Part memoir, part investigation, Angela reflects on the struggles of her own upbringing, and shows how colonialism and racism have led to a society where the lives of Indigenous women and girls are ignored and devalued.
Kingston Writersfest 2024
Write Your Story, David A. Robertson, A workshop for Youth
September 26, 2024 at The Screening Room, Roxy
This was a TeensWrite Studio event. David A. Robertson is a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award winner and has won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the Writer’s Union of Canada Freedom to Read award. He has received several other accolades for his work as a writer for children and adults, podcaster, public speaker, and social advocate. He was honoured with a Doctor of Letters by the University of Manitoba in 2023 for outstanding contributions to the arts and distinguished achievements. He is a member of Norway House Cree Nation and lives in Winnipeg.
Festival Field Trip: The Sleeping Giant
September 26, 2024 at Kingston Market Square Hotel
Cree author David A. Robertson, two-time GGLA winner and recipient of the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the Writer’s Union of Canada Freedom to Read award, is back with book 5 of the Misewa Saga. This Narnia-inspired Indigenous middle-grade fantasy series follows two Indigenous children who discover a portal at their foster home to another world, Askī; there, they discover talking animal beings who connect them to traditional ways of life, and help them deal with their challenges in the real world. The Misewa Saga (“misewa” is Cree for “all that is”) series reflects stories of the sky and the constellations held within its great canvas.
‘Need To Know: Canada’s Real History’, Tanya Talaga, moderated by Kelly O’nahkwi:yo Maracle
September 27, 2024 at Kingston Market Square Hotel
For generations, the treatment of First Nations, Métis and Inuit people has been a shameful open secret, as Indigenous peoples were subjected to residential schools, “Indian hospitals” and asylums. In The Knowing, Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga retells the history of this country through an Indigenous lens, beginning with her great-great-grandmother and her family through decades of government- and Church-sanctioned enfranchisement and genocide.
Tanya spoke to the work being done to unravel centuries-long oppression that continues to reverberate in Indigenous communities today.
