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Emerging Writers Faculty Readings

Collage of program faculty, Katherena Vermette and Tanya Boteju

Collage of program faculty, Katherena Vermette and Tanya Boteju

Join us for readings by our amazing and award-winning faculty of the Emerging Writers Residency at Banff Centre. Katherena Vermette and Tanya Boteju are both well regarded writers for young people focused on diverse and dynamic story telling. Both writers will be reading a selection of their work for the public.

Presenting Faculty

Katherena Vermette

Katherena Vermette (she/her) is a Red River Métis (Michif) writer from Treaty 1 territory, the heart of the Métis nation - Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her first book, North End Love Songs (The Muses Company) won the 2013 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her first novel, The Break (House of Anansi) was a national bestseller and won several 2017 awards, including the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Prize, and McNally Robinson Book of the Year. 

She lives with her family in a cranky old house within skipping distance of the temperamental Red River.

Tanya Boteju

Tanya Boteju is a teacher and writer living on unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations (Vancouver, BC). Part-time, she teaches English to clever and sassy young people. The rest of her time, she writes and procrastinates from writing. Her novel Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens (Simon & Schuster 2019) was named a Top Ten Indie Next Pick by the American Booksellers Association and an American Library Association Rainbow List selection for 2020. Her new YA novel, Bruised (Simon & Schuster 2021), has been selected as a Gold Standard book by the Junior Library Guild. In both teaching and writing, she is committed to complex, diverse representation. Visit her at tanyaboteju.com.