Lee Maracle

Lee Maracle is a member of the Sto: Loh nation and was born in North Vancouver. She is a critically acclaimed author and critic, whose works include Sundogs, Ravensong, Sojourner’s Truth and Other Stories, Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel, Daughters are Forever, Will’s Garden, Bent Box, Memory Serves, I am Woman, Talking to the Diaspora, and My Conversations with Canadians. She is co-editor of numerous anthologies, including the award-winning My Home as I remember. Maracle is the recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, the JT Steward Award, and the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. She is an instructor in the Aboriginal Studies Program at the University of Toronto. Furthermore, she is the Traditional Teacher for First Nation’s House and an instructor with the Centre for Indigenous Theater. Maracle has served as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, and the University of Western Washington. She received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from St. Thomas University in 2009.

Quelemia Sparrow

Quelemia Sparrow is an Indigenous actor, writer and director from the Musqueam Nation. She graduated from Studio 58’s Theatre program and the Langara Film Arts screenwriting program. Acting credits include: Our Town (Osimous Theatre), The Edward Curtis Project (GCTC/NAC), The Penelopiad (Arts Club Theatre), Where the Blood Mixes (Playhouse/WCT) and The Fall (Electric Company). Writing credits include: Ashes on the Water (Neworld Theatre/Raven Spirit Dance). Short screenplays include: Love, The Girl in the Green Beret and Mosquitoes; for which she won an award for her unique voice. Various Film and T.V appearances include: Fringe, Blackstone, Cable Beach, The Letter, Da Vinci’s City Hall, V, Unnatural and Accidental, and Da Vinci’s Inquest which she won a Leo Award for Best Female Guest Appearance. She was a playwright-in-residence with Full Circle: First Nations Performance writing The Women of Papiyek, a project delving into the living history of Xway Xway (Stanley Park); co-creating a children’s show called Salmon Girl with Raven Spirit Dance, which premiered at Presentation House in 2017, and collaborated with ITSAZOO and Savage Society on The Pipeline Project, which premiered at The Gateway (Richmond) in 2017. She was writer in residence with Full Circle and an associate artist with Urban Ink Productions. Her latest Skyborn: A Land Reclamation Odyssey, which premiered at Push Festival, and O’wet/Lost Lagoon, co-produced by Alley Theatre and Full Circle: First Nations Performance.

David A. Chang

David Aiona Chang is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) historian of indigenous people, colonialism, borders and migration in Hawaiʻi and North America, focusing especially on the histories of Native American and Native Hawaiian people. He is Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Chair of the American Indian Studies Department at the University of Minnesota. He has published a number of articles, essays, and two books: The World and All the Things Upon It: Native Hawaiian Geographies of Exploration (2016) and The Color of the Land: Race, Nation, and the Politics of Land Ownership (2010). David is a former secretary of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association

Vicente M. Diaz

Vicente M. Diaz is Carolinian (Pohnpei Island, Federated States of Micronesia) and Filipino from Guam. In 2016 he joined the faculty in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, where he directs the Native Canoe Program which uses indigenous watercraft and TEK about water from Oceania and Turtle Island for engaged learning, teaching, research and relative-making. He has worked in the area of traditional canoe and voyaging revitalization in Micronesia for over three decades, and draws from that knowledge and experience base for critical indigenous theorizing and anti-colonial practice, and for advancing global and comparative Indigenous studies. He is the author of Repositioning the Missionary: Rewriting the History of Native Catholicism, Indigeneity, and Colonialism in Guam (University of Hawaii Press 2011) and writer, producer, and director of Sacred Vessels: Navigating Tradition and Identity in Micronesia (vhs 1997).