Resurgence

KC Adams (Ininnew/Anishinaabe/British) is a registered Fisher River Cree Nation member living in Winnipeg. KC is a relational maker, educator, activist, and mentor who creates work that explores technology in relation to her Indigenous culture. Adams is an award-winning, nationally and internationally known maker with a B.F.A. from Concordia University and an M.A. in Cultural Studies, Curatorial Stream from the University of Winnipeg. KC has had numerous solo and group exhibitions, residencies and three biennales.

Rita Bouvier is a freelance researcher and community-learning facilitator working with various public institutions and private sector organizations. After retiring from the administrative staff of the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation in 2006, Rita served as a coordinator with the Canadian Council on Learning-Aboriginal Learning Knowledge Centre partnership at the University of Saskatchewan.

NICOLA I. CAMPBELL is Nleʔkepmx, Sylix and Métis. She is the author of five picture books, including Shi-shi-etko (Ânskohk Aboriginal Children's Book of the Year) and Shin-chi's Canoe (TD Canadian Children's Literature Award), both illustrated by Kim LaFave. Nicola is also a poet and has published a memoir, Spílexm: A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence. She teaches courses in Indigenous literature and Indigenous Studies at the University of the Fraser Valley, in Chilliwack, BC.

Lucy Hemphill is a Kwakwaka'wakw mother from the Gwa'sala-'Nakwaxda'xw Nation. She graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Arts in First Nations and Indigenous Studies in 2019. Lucy strives to reconnect to ancestral relational ways of being and is currently working to develop language revitalization and healing programs in her community. Lucy is the author of the Overhead Series, which includes three poetry titles: Clouds, Stars, and Trees.

Wanda John-Kehewin (she/her/hers) is a Cree writer who uses her work to understand and respond to the near destruction of First Nations cultures, languages, and traditions. When she first arrived in Vancouver on a Greyhound bus, she was a pregnant nineteen-year-old carrying little more than a bag of chips, a bottle of pop, thirty dollars, and hope. After many years travelling (well, mostly stumbling) along her healing journey, she now writes to stand in her truth and to share that truth openly. A published poet and fiction author, her first novel for young adults, Hopeless in Hope, won the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize and was named to USBBY’s Outstanding International Books list.

Eizabeth LaPensée (she/her or they/them), PhD, is an award-winning designer, writer, artist, and researcher who creates and studies Indigenous-led media, including video games. She is Anishinaabe with family from Bay Mills, Métis, and Irish. She is an assistant professor of media and information, and writing, rhetoric, and American cultures at Michigan State University and a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow.

Victoria McIntosh, also known as Biktoryias, has a strong bond to stories and identifies as ikwe (woman, water carrier). Transitioning from artist to educator, she now merges both gifts into sharing what she sees in her life. Working with many different mediums and combining traditional storytelling with artworks, she strives to create deeper meaning and understanding of Indigenous teachings.

Reanna McKay (Merasty) is a proud Nihithaw mother, writer, and artist from Barren Lands First Nation, and an Architect based in Treaty 1 Territory. She holds a Master of Architecture and a Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Manitoba. Her work, which is greatly influenced by her family and community, amplifies Indigenous voices, fosters community engagement, promotes land-based pedagogies, and enhances representation in architecture.

David A. Robertson is a two-time Governor General's Literary Award winner and has won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the Writers' Union of Canada Freedom to Read Award. He has received several other accolades for his work as a writer for children and adults, a podcaster, a public speaker, and a social advocate. He was honoured with a Doctor of Letters from the University of Manitoba in 2023 and a Doctor of Laws from both the University of Lethbridge in 2025 and Queen’s University in 2026. He is a member of Norway House Cree Nation and lives in Winnipeg.

Russell Wallace (he/him/his) is an award-winning composer, producer, and traditional singer from the Lil'wat Nation. His music can be heard on soundtracks for film, television, theatre, and dance productions. His most recent album, Unceded Tongues, combines Salish musical forms with pop, jazz, and blues, and is sung in the St'át'imc language. Russell is a founding member of the Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast and an alumnus of the University of British Columbia Creative Writing Program.

Christina Lavalley Ruddy, a member of Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation, is an artist, researcher, mentor, and advocate. She has spent her career working to empower Indigenous youth through education, language, and capacity building, in settings such as friendship centres and post-secondary institutions. In 2018, Christina received Lakehead University's Indigenous Partnership Research Award, with Dr. Ruth Beatty, in recognition of her leadership in incorporating Indigenous knowledge into the Ontario mathematics curriculum.