It's Sunday. Another weekend gone by already. I have missed a couple of Sunday Spotlights and I am going to blame it on the fact that I was out in the middle of nowhere in a cabin with my dogs. However, this Sunday, I wanted to spotlight Tanya Talaga who is an Ojibwe, Canadian journalist and author.
I first became familiar with Talaga when I attended the FOLD festival in 2019. Talaga was one of the speakers on a panel and I was very impressed with her. I was impressed by her knowledge and passion for indigenous people and issues in Canada. I met her afterwards to ask her to sign the book I had purchased, and again she was impressive.
Her first book, Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City was published in 2017 by Anansi Press. She followed that up with All Our Relations: Finding The Path Forward, in 2018 also by Anansi Press. Both books are non-fiction. The first is about the death of seven students in Thunder Bay, ON and the second, looks at the increase in suicides in indigenous communities around the world. Difficult but important topics. One of the reasons I admire Talaga, is she is not afraid to go there. These cases and issues are very sensitive and controversial, but they are important, for Canadians especially.
To learn more about Tanya Talaga and her books, I would encourage you to visit the podcast of my good friends Rebecca and Shauna at Canada Reads American Style. They had the opportunity to interview Tanya and talk about Seven Fallen Feathers. It's a fantastic interview. You can find that interview at the following link:
If you are looking for more information about All Our Relations, I had a conversation with Rebecca about it on their podcast. You can follow the link for that here:
You may need to download the Podbean app to listen It's free and they have a lot of great interviews so it's worth it to show them a bit of love.
In a couple of interviews I've heard, Tanya Talaga has talked about some upcoming projects and having time to focus more on writing. I look forward to what she has next for us as I think she is an author making an impact on our society especially during a time when we are talking about systemic racism.
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