Biographies

CHARLOTTE MEARNS is from Musqueam First Nation. Charlotte
has dedicated her career toward Aboriginal justice services and
programming in British Columbia, and recently has been involved in
the regional administration (with Lu’ma Native Housing Society as
the host agency) for the Government of Canada’s National
Homelessness Strategy.

KAWENNENHAWI NELSON is a fifteen year old status Mohawk
from Kanehsatake, Quebec. She is in Grade Nine at the Ratihen:te
High School in Kanehsatake. Kawennenhawi is fluent in Mohawk and
proficient in English and French. In 2001, she was awarded the
“Aboriginal Youth” Bursary of $750 from FAAY (Foundation For The
Advancement of Aboriginal Youth). Her goals are to either study
medicine or become a teacher of the Mohawk language.

VANESSA NELSON is a Mohawk from Kanehsatake in Quebec. She
is currently attending Ratihen:te High School. She is fifteen years old
and was published in Gatherings 11 in 2000. She is thinking about
writing a novel.

VERA NEWMAN is an Elder from the Namgis First Nation in Alert
Bay, BC.

RICHARD O’HALLORAN is an Aboriginal who is very interested in
becoming a published poet/author. He is a Mohawk born to Wahta
Territory in Muskoka, Ontario. He began to write at the age of nine
and has been using it as a passive form of coping ever since. He used
to write of usually negative issues because that is what he was going
through at the time, but has recently changed to more guiding forms of
positive affirmation.

DAWNA ELAINE PAGE (KARONHIAKWAS) is a mixed-blood
member of the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne, living with her husband
and three children near Chicago, Illinois. She hears the stories of her
people crying out to be told, and does her best to capture their words.

165