Literary Journalist Stephanie Joe encourages Indigenous writers to tell their own stories – The Spec
Jan. 29, 2025
(ANNews) – Literary Journalist, Stephanie Joe grew up in the Yukon on her traditional territories that connected her to her ancestors, learning and engaging in traditional ways of living that supported families and community. In her youth, she was proud to be Indigenous until she became a teenager, feeling it was “no longer cool to be native, and turned away that part of myself.”
(ANNews) – Literary Journalist, Stephanie Joe grew up in the Yukon on her traditional territories that connected her to her ancestors, learning and engaging in traditional ways of living that supported families and community. In her youth, she was proud to be Indigenous until she became a teenager, feeling it was “no longer cool to be native, and turned away that part of myself.”
Then when Joe was attending a creative writing program in Kelowna, British Columbia, she learned that many people, including her English instructor were just starting to learn about the true history of Canada, Indian Residential Schools, how Indigenous peoples were displaced, and how intergenerational transmission of trauma affected Indigenous people—yet for Joe, it was always a part of her life.
