An Evening with Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer (wîhtamawik/ Tell Them: On a Life of Inspiration)

Name: An Evening with Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer (wîhtamawik/ Tell Them: On a Life of Inspiration)
Start: 2026-02-20T19:00:00-06:00
End: 2026-02-20T20:00:00-06:00
Location: McNally Robinson Booksellers

Schedule

Fri Feb 20 2026 at 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm

UTC-06:00

Location

McNally Robinson Booksellers | Winnipeg, MB

Join us for a very special evening with Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer as she reads from, discusses, and signs her new book wîhtamawik/ Tell Them: On a Life of Inspiration (University of Regina Press).
https://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/9781779400840/louise-bernice-halfe-sky-dancer/witamowik-tell-them
This event will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a YouTube stream: https://youtube.com/live/TOmf4idi2aU
Cree poet and kêhtê-aya Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer chronicles her childhood in a cabin on reserve, through the Indian Residential School system, and into her reclamation of her nēhiýaw language, culture, and spirituality.
In never-before-collected essays and new poems, poet and kêhtê-aya (Elder) Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer tells the story of how she woke up from the trauma of separation and found the source of her inspiration: her culture and the land. In Cree, inspiration is described as a sudden insight. It can come from visits from spirit, from the charged reciprocal experience of being taught by Elders and teaching the next generation, from speaking Cree, which allows the poet to “somersault intomemory,” and from the practice of observing and being in relationship with the land as it “constantly gives birth to itself.” wîhtamawik/ Tell Them is a stunning love song to nêhiý aw ways of knowing—ways which Halfe has spent her life workingto reclaim from the violence of colonization—to celebrate theisurvival and share their enduring teachings with future generations.
Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer is an acclaimed nêhiýaw (Plains Cree) poet and writer from the Saddle Lake First Nation in Alberta. She has been the recipient of multiple awards and appointments for her work, including the Saskatchewan Centennial Medal, Saskatchewan Provincial Poet Laureate, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate, King Charles III Coronation Medal, and Member of the Order of Canada.