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.