Episode 8: Lillian Allen Interviews Lenore Keeshig - a podcast by The Insurgent Architects House for Creative Writing

This episode is dedicated to Daniel David Moses

This interview of Lenore Keeshig by Lillian Allen was recorded during a TIA House symposium called Wisdom Council in September 2019. Wisdom Council recognized the imperfect knowledge transmission methods of the colonial system, and particularly the ways it has tended to fragment non-Western knowledges and privilege the textual over the oral. Using a combination of traditional and contemporary practices, it brought together a small council of mostly BIPOC senior practitioners in the contemporary arts to sit in council over three days to discuss such topics as what our communities need now; memory and forgetting; community formations they’ve experienced; community formations they remember; and practices and strategies that might be of use or interest in the present moment.BIOS:

Lenore Keeshig is a citizen of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation on the Saugeen Bruce Peninsula, and resides on Neyaashiinigmiing (ne-yaa-shee-ni-gming) (home to the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation). Lenore is a storyteller, poet, award-winning author, naturalist, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Her long-awaited first collection of poetry Running on the March Wind was published by in 2015.Lillian Allen—from her website—Lillian Allen is a professor of creative writing at Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU). Multi-disciplinary and experimental, Allen’s creativity crosses many genres including radio, theatre, music and film; as a writer, featured artist and producer/director and national radio show host. Allen is a recognized authority and activist on issues of diversity in culture, cultural equity, cross cultural collaborations, and the power of arts in education and has worked, locally, nationally and internationally in this capacity.

REFERENCES:10:15—Lillian refers to the entanglement with The Writers’ Union of Canada
10:40—Lillian and Lenore discuss Writing Thru Race (smarokamboureli.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Lai_Essay.pdf), The Appropriate Voice (Orillia, 1991), and It’s a Cultural Thing (Calgary, 1993)12:10—Lenore refers to Daniel David Moses (www.danieldavidmoses.com), Tomson Highway (www.tomsonhighway.com), and Drew Hayden Taylor (www.drewhaydentaylor.com)
13:10—The organization Lenore talks about is The Committee to Reestablish the Trickster (CRET). See Moses’ piece about CRET in the American Indian Quarterly, “The Trickster's Laugh: My Meeting with Tomson and Lenore”: www.jstor.org/stable/4139046?seq=1.23:50—Lenore’s piece in the Globe and Mail is “Stop Stealing Native Stories”: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/cultural-appropriation-stop-stealing-native-stories/article35066040/
52:30—Lillian brings up M. NourbeSe Philip (www.nourbese.com) and Susan Crean (susancrean.ca/)
54:25—Lenore refers to the Racial Minority Writers Committee (www.writersunion.ca/past-activities-and-achievements)55:03—Lillian talks about The Womens’ Press (womenspress.canadianscholars.ca), Maureen Fitzgerald (womenspress.canadianscholars.ca/authors/maureen-fitzgerald-29f96f76-d80d-4b0b-8a56-aa86b39a474d), Ann Decter (womenspress.canadianscholars.ca/authors/ann-decter)
1:04:52—Maria Campbell (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Campbell)TIA House recognizes the generous support of the Canada Research Chairs program and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. We also appreciate the support of the Faculty of Arts and the Department of English at the University of Calgary, where our offices are housed, as well as the guidance of Marc Stoeckle at the Taylor Family Digital Library. TIA House is run by Larissa Lai, Trynne Delaney, Rebecca Geleyn, Isabelle Michalski, and Joshua Whitehead.

Our intro/outro music is “Monarch of the Streets” by Loyalty Freak Music.

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