Indigenous Writers in Canada: Artist Profiles!

A consortium of German developers shows up on the fictional Otter Lake Reserve with a seemingly irresistible offer to improve the local economy: the creation of "Ojibway World," a Native theme park designed to attract European tourists, causing hilarious personal and political divisions within the local community. The Berlin Blues concludes Drew Hayden Taylor's Blues quartet, showcasing contemporary stereotypes of First Nations people, including a fair number that originate from Indigenous communities themselves, to the often outraged delight of his international audiences.Yet Europeans and other ethnic groups are not exempt from Taylor's incisive but good-humoured caricatures.

Dead White Writer on the Floor uses two literary conventions-theatre of the absurd and mystery novels-to create one of the funniest and thought-provoking plays ever about identity politics.

Taylor's stories in Fearless Warriors are a full frontal assault on stereotypes of all kinds and an edifying affirmation of humanity unlike anything else in fiction.Each of these stories is as remarkably different in terms of its unique narrative tone, origin and direction, as are the characters of his plays, making Taylor's singular collection of fictions quite intentionally much more than the sum of their parts.

George (Assistant Bishop in the Anglican Church): You don't want to kill me, Johnny. It wouldn't solve anything. It would only make your life worse.

Johnny (Native woman, panhandler, residential school survivor): I live on the streets, eat garbage, beg to survive, have nightmares - and I'm dying. How much worse could it possibly get?

George: Put the gun down.

Johnny: When I'm done with it.

George: I'm not afraid to die. Why do you want to do this?

Johnny: To end this. Make it stop.

(text taken from page 44)

This play raises powerful questions that transcend issues of culture, morality and history - they cut to the ethical quick of what it means to be human in a chaotic world stripped of the comfortable security of identity politics.

A moving and often funny look at Native sexuality from some of Canada's best First Nations and Inuit writers.

Otter Lake is a sleepy Anishnawbe community where little happens. Until the day a handsome stranger pulls up astride a 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle – and turns Otter Lake completely upside down. Maggie, the Reserve’s chief, is swept off her feet, but Virgil, her teenage son, is less than enchanted. Suspicious of the stranger’s intentions, he teams up with his uncle Wayne – a master of aboriginal martial arts – to drive the stranger from the Reserve. And it turns out that the raccoons are willing to lend a hand.

In this collection of short humourous essays originally written for the popular media, playwright, novelist and screenwriter Drew Hayden Taylor sends his readers fascinating and exotic postcards from his globetrotting adventures, always on the lookout for the NEWS about aboriginal peoples around the world.

A mesmerizing blend of vampire thriller and coming-of-age story—now available as a graphic novel. Newcomers to the Otter Lake native reserve don’t go unnoticed for long. So it’s no surprise that 16-year-old Tiffany’s curiosity is piqued when her father rents out her room to a complete stranger.

Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth is the emotional story of a woman's struggle to acknowledge her birth family. Grace, a Native girl adopted by a White family, is asked by her birth sister to return to the Reserve for their mother's funeral. Afraid of opening old wounds, Grace must find a place where the culture of her past can feed the truth of her present.