Nicola Campbell is Nłeʔkepmx, Syilx and Métis from the Nicola Valley, British Columbia and currently lives in Stò:lō solh temexw. She is the author of Shi-shi-etko, Shin-chi’s Canoe, Grandpa’s Girls and A Day with Yayah. Her stories weave cultural and land-based teachings that focus on truth, love, respect, endurance, and reciprocity. Her Ph.D. dissertation research through UBC Okanagan draws upon Indigenous scholarship with a focus on contemporary and traditional Indigenous storytelling practices. Nicola writes adult and children’s free-verse poetry, fiction and non-fiction prose.

Shi-shi-etko was the co-winner of the 2006 Anskohk Aboriginal Children’s Book of the Year. Shin-chi’s Canoe, the sequel to Shi-shi-etko, received the 2009 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award. Grandpa’s Girls, released in 2011, was a finalist for the Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Book Award. Shi-shi-etko and Shin-chi’s Canoe are both produced into short movies, set in Stó:lō solh temexw with the main spoken language as Stó:lō Halq’emeylem with English subtitles. Both films have been shown at film festivals around the world. Shi-shi-etko and Shin-chi’s Canoe the books and films are used in core educational curriculum focusing on Indian Residential Schools across Canada.

Her next publication titled Stand Like a Cedar is published by Highwater Press and illustrated by Stò:lō artist Carrielynn Victor. The release date is February 2021. Campbell’s forthcoming memoir, featuring a combination of poetry and prose, will be published by HighWater Press, Winnipeg.

Rob Malo, also known as TiBert le Voyageur, is a Franco-Manitoban Métis storyteller, author, stage performer, juggler, poet, and community builder who shares his passion for history and culture with people of all ages. Recognized by Storytellers of Canada as being a Master Storyteller, Rob has been the Writer in Residence at the University of Manitoba, he draws on his background as an Educational Programs Developer at the Manitoba Museum and as a Professor in the Tourism Department of l'Université de St. Boniface to delight audiences through storytelling, music and song.

Renée Hulan is the 2020-2021 Craig Dobbin Visiting Professor in Canadian Studies at University College Dublin. She is the author of Climate Change and Writing the Canadian Arctic (Palgrave 2018), Canadian Historical Fiction: Reading the Remains (Palgrave 2014), and Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture (MQUP 2002). From 2005-2007, she co-edited the Journal of Canadian Studies with Donald Wright. She edited Native North America: Critical and Cultural Perspectives (ECW 1999) and co-edited Aboriginal Oral Traditions: Theory, Practice, Ethics with Renate Eigenbrod (Fernwood 2008).

Brenda Rawn Jordan is a graduate of the University of Waterloo, Canada and UCD Dublin. She worked as a councillor with adolescents before moving to Dublin in 1984. Brenda is a company director and an executive in the film industry for over 35 years.

Dr. Aubrey Jean Hanson is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta and an Associate Professor in Education at the University of Calgary in Canada. Her ancestry extends to Red River Métis, German, Icelandic, Cree, French, and Scottish roots. Aubrey’s research spans Indigenous literary studies, curriculum studies, and Indigenous education, looking in particular at how Indigenous literary arts can precipitate relationships between non-Indigenous learners and Indigenous resurgence. Her book Literatures, Communities, and Learning: Conversations with Indigenous Writers was published with Wilfrid Laurier University Press in spring 2020.

Linda Ervine is a language rights activist from East Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is a supporter of the Gaelic Irish language and Ulster-Scots. Linda established the Turas Irish Language Programme on the Newtownards Road in Belfast, which currently caters to over 300 learners of the Irish language. Linda is President of the newly formed East Belfast GAA club.

Richard Van Camp is a proud Tlicho Dene from Fort Smith, NWT. He is the author of 24 books in just about every genre. His novel, The Lesser Blessed, is now a feature film with First Generation Films. Mahsi cho. Thank you!

Photo: William Au

Liam Ó Maonlaí is one the most gifted and versatile musicians to emerge from Ireland in recent decades. A founding member and frontman of the internationally successful Hot House Flowers, Liam also performs widely as a solo artist, and in collaboration with other musicians around the world. His music is rooted in Irish tradition with deep connections to gospel, blues and rock.

”I believe the style known as séan nos carries a sense of the soul of the land and the people who are awake in that land. I feel, when in the company of other cultures, the singing of this style opens a window into what it is that connects us.”

Photo: Tara Keane

Jeannette Armstrong, Associate Professor in Indigenous Studies, is Syilx Okanagan.

As an award-winning writer and activist, novelist, and poet she has always sought to change deeply biased misconceptions related to Indigenous people.

She holds the Canada Research Chair in Okanagan Indigenous Knowledge and Philosophy. She is the recipient of the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. Her research in Indigenous philosophies and Okanagan Syilx thought and environmental ethics coded into Syilx oral literatures has been recognized locally and globally. She collaborates with Salish speaking groups to re-establish Indigenous languages, historical relationships, food resource ceremonies through gatherings, trading and protections of water and land practices.

She is a recipient of the Eco Trust USA Buffett Award in Indigenous Leadership and serves on Canada’s Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife In Canada (COSEWIC).