Many Mothers, Seven Skies: Scenes for Tomorrow is a collection of diverse writers that came together to share their thoughts and dreams for the future. Each short story is a play in which the authors highlight their memories, thoughts, and feelings for the reader. Each play is dedicated to female empowerment as seen through the lens of a strong woman. Every story examines various topics, including residential school systems in Canada, racism, and the effects of years of feeling abandoned and alone. Each one is a single journey, which the author is leading you on using descriptive and powerful words to bring forth the pain that was felt and the strength that it took to overcome it. These are a collection of stories from powerful women and how they used these stories to promote healing, love, hopefulness, and their innermost medicine. A book for all to learn from and enjoy.

Contributor Affiliation: Authors Joan Crate (Métis), Sherry Letendre, Karen W. Olson (nehiyaw/anishinaabe) Cheryl Foggo, Tchitala Nyota Kamba
Bibliography: No
Index: No

Source: Books BC - Indigenous Books for Schools

Joan Crate was born in Yellowknife, N.W.T., but moved to Vancouver after her miner father decided to become a teacher. Because her father taught on various Reserves in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, Joan grew up in a variety of Metis and Native cultures. She graduated from the University of Calgary with an Honours BA in English and a Masters in English (with Distinction). Her Honours Project, a poetry collection entitled Pale as Real Ladies, was published by Brick Books. She has also published a first novel, Breathing Water, with NeWest Press. She taught literature, including Native writers, for over twenty years at Red Deer College. Crate drew on her first-hand knowledge of and sympathy for Native cultures to write Black Apple, in addition to researching the history of residential schools and interviewing survivors. She lives with her husband and children in Calgary.

Joan Crate says that while her family history is not entirely clear, she believes her ancestors may have been Metis from Manitoba who dispersed east and west after the Riel Rebellion. In her own words: “My dad brought us up with exposure to First Nations and Metis cultures, no matter where we were living, so my sister and I were taken to potlatches, pow-wows, art exhibitions and political rallies from an early age. I would have to say that it’s the cultural exposure rather than the racial and, to a lesser extent, the political that makes me identify with First Nations/Metis cultures.”

Joan Crate's profile page

Cheryl Foggo is a multiple award-winning playwright, author and filmmaker, whose work over the last thirty years has focused on the lives of Western Canadians of African descent. Recent works include the release of her NFB feature documentary John Ware Reclaimed, available on nfb.ca, as well as the thirtieth anniversary edition of her book Pourin' Down Rain: A Black Woman Claims Her Place in the Canadian West. Her plays Heaven and John Ware Reclaimed have received multiple productions, including at The Citadel in Edmonton, Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary, at the Blyth Theatre Festival and in Ottawa at the National Arts Centre. Cheryl is the recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Outstanding Artist Award, the Doug and Lois Mitchell Outstanding Calgary Artist Award and the Arts, Media and Entertainment Award from the Calgary Black Chambers, all in 2021. She is a 2022 inductee into the Alberta Order of Excellence.

Cheryl Foggo's profile page

Linda Gaboriau is a dramaturge and literary translator renowned for her translations of some 100 plays and novels by some of Quebec's most prominent writers, including many of the Quebec plays best known to English Canadian audiences. After studying French language and literature at McGill University, she freelanced as a journalist for the CBC and the Montreal Gazette. She has worked in Canadian and Québécois theatre and is founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, where she directed numerous translation residencies and international exchange projects. Her third translation of a Wajdi Mouawad play Forests in 2010 won her a second Governor General's Literary Award for translation. Originally from Boston, Linda Gaboriau has been based in Montreal since 1963.
David Homel is a writer, journalist, filmmaker, and translator. He is the author of five previous novels, including The Speaking Cure, which won the J.I. Segal Award of the Jewish Public Library, and the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Best Fiction from the Quebec Writer's Federation. He has also written two children's books, including Travels with my Family, which was co-authored with his wife, Canadian children's author Marie-Louise Gay. He has translated several French works, receiving two Governor General's Literary Awards for translation. Homel was born and raised in Chicago and currently resides in Montreal.
Maureen Labonté is a dramaturge, translator and teacher. She has also coordinated a number of play-development programs in theatres and playwrights' centres across the country. In 2006, she was named head of program for the Banff playRites Colony at The Banff Centre. She was dramaturge at the Colony from 2003-2005. She was also literary manager in charge of play development at the Shaw Festival from 2002-2004. Previous to that, she worked at the National Theatre School of Canada (NTSC), first developing and running a pilot directing program and then coordinating the playwrighting program and playwrights' residency. She still teaches at NTSC. She has translated more than thirty Quebec plays into English. Recent translations include: The Bookshop by Marie-Josée Bastien, Everybody's WELLES pour tous by Patrice Dubois, Martin Labreque and The Tailor's Will by Michel Ouellette, Wigwam by Jean-Frédéric Messier and Bienvenue à (une ville dont vous êtes le touriste) by Olivier Choinière.

Linda Gaboriau's profile page

Tchitala Nyota Kamba is a Calgary-based writer, actor, poet, drummer and educator, as well as the founder of Miabiwood Film Production (MFP) Ltd. (formerly Apapi Film & Theatre). Originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she has a PhD in French Studies from the Université de Montréal and has published poetry collections, written for the theatre, most recently for the 2021 Ethnik Festival for the Arts, and acted in and directed performances for Calgary's Alliance Française, among others. Her next book, Kayowa wa Bayombo, will be published by France's Éditions Amalthée in 2023.

Tchitala Nyota Kamba's profile page

Sherry Letendre's profile page

Karen W. Olson (BFA) is Cree/Anishinaabe of Peguis First Nation in Manitoba. She is the department head of creative writing at the En'owkin Centre. Karen is working towards her MFA and continues to write stories for children and adults.

 

Karen W. Olson's profile page

Susan Ouriou is an award-winning literary translator who has translated the fiction of Quebec, Latin-American, French and Spanish authors. She won Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation in 2009 for Pieces of Me by Charlotte Gingras, after first being shortlisted for The Road to Chlifa by Michèle Marineau and then for Necessary Betrayals by Guillaume Vigneault. The Road to Chlifa was also awarded an honour list placing by IBBY (International Board of Books for Youth) as were Naomi and Mrs. Lumbago by Gilles Tibo, This Side of the Sky by Marie-Francine Hébert and Pieces of Me. Necessary Betrayals was also voted one of the 100 best books of 2002 by the Globe and Mail. Another translation, The Thirteenth Summer by José Luis Olaizola, was runner-up for the John Glassco Translation Prize. She has worked as the director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre and as faculty for the Banff Centre's Aboriginal Emerging Writers residency. She is the editor of the 2010 anthology Beyond Words – Translating the World.

Susan Ouriou's profile page