Tomson
Highway
Tomson Highway was born in a snow bank on the Manitoba/Nunavut border to a family of nomadic caribou hunters. He grew up in two languages, Cree, his mother tongue, and Dene, the language of the neighbouring nation. A playwright, novelist, and pianist/songwriter, Highway is best known for the plays, The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapusakasing, as well as the novel Kiss of the Fur Queen. Last year he published From Oral to Written, a study of Indigenous literature published in Canada between 1980 and 2010. He divides his time between his cottage near Sudbury, Ontario, and Gatineau, Québec.
Program History
2018 Lecturer
Margaret Laurence Lecture Series- Awards
- Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
- Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
- Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
- Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life
- Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize
- Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People
- Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award
- RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers
- Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize
- Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers
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