Author Spotlight
About this Event
Author Spotlight featuring Award-Winning Author Katlia Lafferty and Dene Storyteller and Media Journalist Cassandra Blondin-Burt!
Please join us on Wednesday October 14, 2026 with Katlia and Cassandra!
Date: Wednesday October 14, 2026
Time: 11:00am-3:00pm
Location: 7th Floor of Health Sciences Bldg, 155 College St, Toronto
Book Overview: Mother Earth is Our Elder
A Globe and Mail Bestseller
Award-winning Dene activist and writer Katłı̨̀ą teaches us Indigenous ways to protect and learn from Mother Earth.
The Dene in Canada’s Northwest Territories have lived alongside nature for many generations. From battling environmental racism on the front lines of historical environmental protests to living a balanced life through effective individual and collective governance, the Dene have long protected Mother Earth from destruction through their intricate knowledge systems, natural laws, and age-old principles.
Now more than ever, institutions and citizens alike are seeking out and relying on the resilience of Indigenous knowledge systems to help solve the climate crisis. This book brings together a diverse group of Dene Elders and knowledge carriers on the subject of climate change to answer the calls for help. Adhering proudly to these responsibilities and values, Katłı̨̀ą writes a Dene manifesto fit to address the state of emergency we’re in.
With evidence of how this all works for the Dene people, we see how it might work for us all. This generous, pragmatic, and hopeful book shows us how to find coexistence with Mother Earth and embrace the wisdom of our local Indigenous communities.
(https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/755796/mother-earth-is-our-elder-by-katlia-lafferty/9780771018572)
Biographies
Katłı̨̀ą is a Dene woman from Dënéndeh. Her northern roots and strong matrilineal lineage inform her storytelling. She is the author of Northern Wildflower, Land-Water-Sky/Ndè-Tı-Yat'a, This House Is Not a Home and Firekeeper. She is a mother, grandmother and daughter of the Dene.
Cassandra Blondin Burt is a Yellowknives Dene Storyteller and Media Journalist who lives and works in Denendeh (Northwest Territory). They currently work as a Communications Specialist for Yellowknives Dene First Nation, and have reported on territorial news for NNSL News Services and CKLB Radio over the last four years.Through a deepening relationship with the land-body we call Earth, Cassandra explores a regenerative writing and creation praxis that allows them to move through myriad contemporary settler-colonial social structures and ideologies with intent, and curiosity Through a deepening relationship with the land-body we call Earth, Cassandra explores a regenerative art and creation praxis that allows them to move through myriad contemporary settler-colonial social structures and ideologies with intent, and curiosity. Cassandra’s work is grounded in an exploration of healing through co-creation with Earth and story, though living in-relation with our other-than-human-relations as a radical act of personal and political rebellion, and a pathway for realizing transformative, collective healing.
Where is it happening?
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