Lenore Keeshig-Tobias

Lenore Keeshig-Tobias is an Anishinabe storyteller, poet, scholar, and journalist and a major advocate for Indigenous writers in Canada. Along with Daniel David Moses and Tomson Highway, she was a founding member of the Indigenous writers' collective, Committee to Reestablish the Trickster.

Family Keeshig-Tobias was born Lenore Keeshig in Wiarton, Ontario in 1950, the eldest of ten children of Keitha (Johnston) and Donald Keeshig. Keeshig-Tobias credits her parents with raising her as a storyteller and with a love of poetry. Due to her mother's interest in poetry, Keeshig-Tobias' personal name came from Edgar Allen Poe's poem, "The Raven."

She later attended York University in Toronto and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in creative writing in 1983. During college she began actively writing poetry.

2001–present worked at Parks Canada as a naturalist, cultural interpreter, and oral history researcher; and in the off-season she teaches at George Brown College in Toronto.

In 1990, she published an essay in Canada's The Globe and Mail newspaper, entitled "Stop Stealing Native Stories," in which she critiqued non-Native writers' use of Native stories and experiences as a "theft of voice," pointing to the examples of Darlene Barry Quaife's Bone Bird, W.P. Kinsella's Hobbema, and the film Where the Spirit Lives.

Keeshig-Tobias served on the advisory board of Oyate, an advocacy and education organization focusing on Native American/Indigenous Peoples' experiences. This session produced a motion against cultural appropriation that was forwarded to the Writers' Union of Canada and passed by its general membership on June 6, 1992.

These efforts led to the 1994 Writing Thru Race conference, a gathering of Indigenous and racialized writers in Vancouver, hosted by the Writers' Union of Canada. Keeshig-Tobias addressed the gathering on the opening night of the event. Writing Thru Race is now considered to be a major milestone in race politics and literature in Canada.

Published works

Creative writing

Juvenile literature

Bird Talk/Bineshiinh Dibaajmowin (Sister Vision Press, 1991) - In English and Ojibway; illustrated by her daughter, Polly Keeshig-Tobias The Short-Cut (Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, 1995) Emma and the Trees/Emma minwaah mtigooh (Sister Vision Press, 1996) - In English and Ojibway; illustrated by her daughter, Polly Keeshig-Tobias The Truth about Nibbles (Ningwakwe Learning Press, 2005) - In English; co-authored by her spouse, David McLaren; illustrated by her daughter, Polly Keeshig-Tobias

Selected poetry

Running on the March Wind (Quatro Books, 2015) - first full book "Those Anthropologists" in: Fireweed: A Feminist Quarterly of Writing, Politics, Art & Culture (Winter, 1986) p. 108.

Stories

"The Porcupine" in: Tales for an Unknown City (edited by Dan Yashinsky, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992)

Served as editor

Books

Into the Moon: Heart, Mind, Body, Soul (Sister Vision Press, 1996) - an anthology of poetry, fiction, myth, and personal essays by Native women All My Relations: Sharing Native Values Through the Arts (Canadian Alliance in Solidarity with Native Peoples, 1988) - co-editor Catherine Verrall Walking a Tightrope: Aboriginal People and Their Representations (Waterloo, Ont. : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005) - co-editors Drew Hayden Taylor, Philip Bellfy, David Newhouse, Mark Dockstator et al

Periodicals

The Ontario Indian (1981-1982) - editor Resource reading list: annotated bibliography of resources by and about native people (Canadian Alliance in Solidarity with Native Peoples, multiple years) "Of Hating, Hurting, and Coming to Terms With the English Language" in:Canadian Journal of Native Education, Vol. 27, No. 1, Advancing Aboriginal Language and Literacy, 2003, pp. 89–100. Contemporary Challenges: Conversations with Canadian Native Authors Hartmut Lutz Fifth House Publishers, 1991 "Not Just Entertainment" in: Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children, edited by Beverly Slapin and Doris Seale Keeshig-Tobias, Lenore and McLaren, David, (1987), "For As Long As the Rivers Flow", This Magazine, Volume 21, No. 3, July, pp. 21–26. Keeshig-Tobias, Lenore.1984. (a found poem). In A Gathering of Spirit: A Collection by North American Indian Women, ed. Beth Brant, 123-24. Toronto: The Women's Press Lenore Keeshig-Tobias. “White Lies.” Saturday Night, October:67-68. Beyer, David and Tobias-Keeshig, Lenore. Powwow Dancer. Sweetgrass (July/August 1984) The Spirit of Turtle Island. Tobias, Lenore Keeshig. Nova Productions, 1988. 1 videorecording (28 min.)

Awards and grants Grants:

Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (1979, 1980) Author's Award (1987 with McLaren) for: "For As Long As the Rivers Flow", This Magazine, Volume 21, No. 3, July, pp. 21–26.