In Conversation: Gwen Benaway & Katherena Vermette

7 PM (doors at 6 PM)

Talk followed by book sales/signing at 8:30 PM

The Koffler Centre of the Arts and Ben McNally Books are thrilled to present Anishinaabe and Métis poet Gwen Benaway, in conversation with Métis writer and artist Katherena Vermette.

A trans girl poet described as “the spiritual love child of Tomson Highway and Anne Sexton,” Gwen Benaway has published two collections of poetry, Ceremonies for the Dead and Passage. Katherena Vermette is the award-winning, bestselling author of North End Love Songs and The Break. Vermette’s most recent book, Pemmican Wars – a sci-fi graphic novel that follows a 13-year-old girl who discovers her Métis history through time travel – is the first volume in the young adult series A Girl Called Echo.

“Vermette is a staggering talent. Reading The Break is like a revelation; stunning, heartbreaking and glorious. From her exquisitely rendered characters to her fully realized world and the ratcheting tension, I couldn’t put it down. Absolutely riveting.”
– Eden Robinson, author of Monkey Beach and Son of a Trickster

Gwen Benaway is a trans girl poet of Anishinaabe and Métis descent. She has published two collections of poetry, Ceremonies for the Dead and Passage, and her third collection, Holy Wild, is forthcoming from BookThug in 2018. She has been described as the spiritual love child of Tomson Highway and Anne Sexton. Her poetry and essays have been published in national publications and anthologies, including The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s Magazine, CBC Arts, and many others. In her spare time, she is a Ph.D student for Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto.

Katherena Vermette is a Métis writer from Treaty 1 territory, the heart of the Métis nation, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her first book, North End Love Songs won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her National Film Board documentary, this river, won the 2017 Canadian Screen Award for Best Short, and her novel, The Break, won the 2017 Amazon.ca First Novel Award. She is also the author of the children’s picture book series The Seven Teaching Stories and recently published Pemmican Wars, the first book in the young adult book series A Girl Called Echo. Ms. Vermette’s second book of poetry, river woman, is forthcoming in the fall of 2018 from House of Anansi Press.