On Thursday, October 26th, the Creative Writing Department at Douglas College will host Indigenous writers, both experienced and emerging, for an evening of poetry and prose in collaboration with EVENT.

Join us for the annual Indigenous Voices event, where these writers will share their work and discuss their writing processes.

This year’s event will feature Brandi Bird, Marissa Charles, and Carleigh Baker, who is the Indigenous Writer-in-Residence with Douglas College’s Creative Writing Department.

Learn more about our featured authors below.

Brandi Bird

BRANDI BIRD is an Indigiqueer Saulteaux, Cree and Métis writer and editor from Treaty 1
territory. They currently live and learn on Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh & Musqueam land. Their
work has been published in Catapult, Poetry is Dead, Hazlitt and others. Their first book of
poetry, The All + Flesh is out with House of Anansi Press. They like to listen to the same song
over and over again and love their three cats Babydoll, Burt and Etta.

Marissa Charles

MARISSA CHARLES is a Queer Autistic Metis writer who works in multiple genres including:
poetry, creative nonfiction, stage/screenwriting, and like to dabble in fiction and songwriting.
Marissa has been published in multiple Pearls: A Douglas Student Anthology editions with their
poetry and screenwriting. Marissa has completed two diplomas at Vancouver Acting School, one
in Acting for Film/TV and Voice over and the other from the Comedy Conservatory before
going on and completing her Associates of Arts Degree in Creative Writing at Douglas College.
She is currently in her Bachelor of Fine Arts: Creative Writing at the University of British
Columbia and working on an indie pop EP and a Dungeons and Dragons live play podcast.

Carleigh Baker

CARLEIGH BAKER is an author and teacher of nêhiyaw âpihtawikosisân (Cree-Métis) and
European descent. Born and raised on Stó:lō territory, she currently lives on the unceded
territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwəta (Tsleil-
Waututh) peoples.

Her debut story collection, Bad Endings (Anvil Press, 2017), won the City of Vancouver Book
Award, and was also a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Emerging
Indigenous Voices Award for fiction. Her short stories and essays have been translated into
several languages and anthologized in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Her newest collection, Last Woman, and a novel, are forthcoming with McClelland & Stewart.

As a teacher and researcher, she is particularly interested in how contemporary fiction can be
used to address the climate crisis. Her novel-in-progress, Mudlarkers, is a darkly satirical look at
how modern conservationist movements have displaced Indigenous voices on issues of land
stewardship. She was a 2019/20 Shadbolt Fellow in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University,
where she sometimes teaches creative writing.

This year, Indigenous Voices will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at The Indigenous Gathering Place, located on the 4th floor of Douglas College’s New Westminster campus. This event is free and open to the community. Refreshments will be provided.

The New Westminster campus is located at 700 Royal Avenue, New Westminster, 1 block from the New Westminster SkyTrain station. The building has wheelchair-accessible elevators and restrooms. Everyone at the college is encouraged to refrain from using strong scents. Some additional campus info can be found here. For questions about campus accessibility, please call 604-527-5400.