Multiple award-winning spoken word artist/storyteller/author Ivan Coyote believes in the transformative power of storytelling. Born and raised in Whitehorse, she has penned six collections of short stories and one novel, and has produced three CDs and four short films. A master performer, she is passionate and funny, sharing a unique voice that traverses love, gender and identity with a wistful, perceptive eye, and a powerful and embracing warmth. Her devoted following includes audiences across the country and in Europe.

Taqralik Partridge is a writer and spoken word performer originally from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, now living in Montreal. As an urban Inuk, she speaks to city life in the south with a style grounded in the tradition of Inuit storytelling blended with “urban speak”, weaving real-life stories with rhyme, lullaby, and Inuit throat singing. She has toured with the Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, produced works under commission for the CBC and has featured on CBC Radio 2′s NEXT! series. Her short story “Igloolik”, published in Maisonneuve magazine, won first prize in the 2010 Quebec Writing Competition. In Ottawa, she has performed as part of First Women, First Voices, at Versefest and in WestFest’s “Qaggiq” Inuit Showcase.

Presented in association with the Ottawa International Writers Festival