On January 28 at 3:30 pm PST, join Indigenous Brilliance for a virtual winter reading featuring a stellar line-up of Indigenous storytellers!
Since 2018, the Indigenous Brilliance Collective has come together with a shared vision of Indigenous resurgence: a resurgence that exists through the act of making space for ourselves and each other, through community building, and through the radical act of living and loving. We want to celebrate Indigenous stories and the different ways we think, share, and perform.
In honouring this vision, we are thrilled to host our next reading series featuring a host nation opening by Senaqwila Wyss (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw, Tsimshian, Stó:lō, Hawaiian and Swiss), words from members of the Indigenous Brilliance Collective, and additional hosting duties from Monday Zankpe (Togolese-Secwépemc). We are also proud to feature readers Jónína Kirton (Métis and Icelandic) and Amanda Peters (Mi’kmaq/Settler).
Registration is free/by donation with all proceeds going to Massy Books’ fundraiser for Islamic Relief Canada.
This event is made possible by Massy Arts, the Vancouver Foundation, BC Arts Council, and the Government of Canada.
Register Here
Venue & Accessibility:
- The event will be hosted online on zoom, all listed times are in the Vancouver time zone.
- ASL interpreting will be provided.
- Closed captioning can be accessed via zoom.
- Registration is free and required for entrance.
About our Readers:
Amanda Peters is a writer of Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry. Her work has appeared in the Antigonish Review, Grain Magazine, the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Dalhousie Review and Filling Station Magazine. She is the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose and a participant in the 2021 Writers’ Trust Rising Stars program. A graduate of the Master of Fine Arts Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Amanda Peters has a Certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. Her debut novel, The Berry Pickers, is a national bestseller and a finalist for the Atwood-Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
Jónína Kirton, an Icelandic and Red River Métis poet was born in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Treaty 1, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Métis. She graduated from Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio in 2007. She released her first book, page as bone ~ ink as blood, in 2015 and was 61 when she received the 2016 Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award for an Emerging Artist in the Literary Arts category. Her second collection of poetry, An Honest Woman, was a finalist in the 2018 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her third book, Standing in a River of Time, released in 2022, merges poetry and lyrical memoir to take readers on a journey exposing the intergenerational effects of colonization on her Métis family. She is a citizen of the Métis Nation of BC and currently lives in New Westminster BC, the unceded territory of the Halkomelem speaking peoples.
About our Hosts:
Senaqwila Wyss is Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw, Tsimshian, Stó:lō, Hawaiian and Swiss. She holds a Bachelor of the Arts Degree in Communications, Arts, and Technology with a minor in First Nations Studies. She also holds a First Nations Languages Proficiency Certificate in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Sníchim. She and her husband are raising their 5 year old daughter and adopted 10 year old niece to be first language speakers, which has not been done in her family for four generations due to colonial impacts. She practices ethnobotany with Indigenous plant medicines alongside her traditionally trained mom, Cease Wyss.
Monday Zankpe (aka Monday Blues) is a dynamic Afro-Indigenous (Togolese-Secwépemc) 2S showgirl, model, entrepreneur, and advocate. With a career spanning over a decade as a professional burlesque performer, Monday is not only a powerhouse on stage, but in business as well. She draws inspiration from a rich tapestry of life experiences, traditional wisdom, and her coaching education to influence her multi-disciplinary creative career. Monday is a member of Virago Nation, Turtle Island’s first all-Indigenous burlesque troupe and is signed to Supernaturals Modelling. Her most recent endeavour includes founding her jewelry line, Monday May Jewelry.
Register Here
