OGAMAS Brandon Aboriginal Literary Festival

OGAMAS Brandon Aboriginal Literary Festival:
What We Gather for Each Other

Canada's premiere bi-annual Aboriginal Literary Festival
Excerpts from Opening Night, October 25, 2007:
Gregory Scofield, Tomson Highway, Maria Campbell, emceed by Lorraine Mayer

Download Gregory Scofield's reading

Gregory Scofield's poetry titles include Singing Home the Bones (Raincoast/Polestar 2006), Love Medicine and One Song (Raincoast/Polestar 2000), and Native Canadiana: Stones for the Medicine Wheel (Raincoast/Polestar 1993). His memoir, Thunder Through My Veins: Memories of a Métis Childhood (HarperCollins) appeared in 1999. He was acknowledged as the most promising Canadian writer by the Canadian Authors' Association in 1996. Singing Home the Bones: A Poet Becomes Himself, an arts documentary featuring Greg Scofield and his poetry was produced in 2006 by Hilary Pryor and the May Street Group, in association with CHUM-TV, directed by Hilary Pryor.

Download Tomson Highway's reading

Tomson Highway is the son of a legendary caribou hunter and world champion dogsled racer Joe Highway, and was born in a tent pitched in a snow bank—in December!—in northwestern Manitoba. His acclaimed and frequently performed plays include The Rez Sisters (Fifth House 1988), Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing (Fifth House 1987) and Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout (Talonbooks 2005). His novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen (Doubleday 1988) was a Canadian bestseller. His awards include two Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the Wang Festival Prize, the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award and a Canadian Authors' Equity Association honorary life membership. He has also published three bilingual children's books in Cree and English. Tomson Highway was the 2006-2007 Stanley Knowles Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Arts at Brandon University.

Download Maria Campbell's reading

Maria Campbell is a renowned playwright, storyteller, filmmaker, mentor and professor of Native Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. Her 1973 memoir, Halfbreed, established Aboriginal and Métis writing in Canada and internationally, and has been celebrated and studied around the world. She is the author of several other books, including Stories of the Road Allowance People (Theytus 1995), and The Book of Jessica: A Theatrical Transformation with Linda Griffiths (Coach House 1985). She sits as an elder of the Saskatchewan Aboriginal Justice Commission, and is a member of the Grandmothers for Justice Society.

Lorraine Mayer is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Native Studies at Brandon University. Her poetry collection, Cries from a Métis Heart, was published by Pemmican Press in 2007. She is the editor of the Canadian Journal of Native Studies.

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