8 books to read if you loved A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby
Fans of the Canada Reads-winning autobiography will love these titles
Podcaster and wellness advocate Shayla Stonechild championed A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, which was written with Mary Louisa Plummer, to victory on Canada Reads 2025!
In A Two-Spirit Journey, Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian who grew up in a remote northern Ontario community, tells the story of how she overcame experiences with abuse and alcohol addiction to become a counsellor and lead Thunder Bay's first gay pride parade.
Here are eight other Canadian books to read if you loved A Two-Spirit Journey.
Becoming a Matriarch by Helen Knott
Becoming a Matriarch tells the story of Helen Knott's experience losing both her mother and grandmother in just over six months. The book explores themes of mourning, sobriety through loss and generational dreaming and redefines what it means to truly be a matriarch.
Becoming a Matriarch won the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes.
Knott is a poet, social worker and writer of Dane Zaa, Cree, Métis and mixed European descent from the Prophet River First Nation. She is also the author of the memoir In My Own Moccasins, which won the 2020 Saskatchewan Book Award for Indigenous Peoples' Publishing.
Mamaskatch by Darrel J. McLeod
Mamaskatch tells the story of Darrel J. McLeod's upbringing on Treaty 8 territory in northern Alberta, raised by his fierce Cree mother, Bertha. In describing memories of moose stew and wild peppermint tea, surrounded by siblings and cousins, he outlines his mother's experiences as a residential school survivor and how she taught him to be proud of his heritage.
Mamaskatch won the Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction. It was also on the longlist for Canada Reads 2024.
McLeod was the writer of two memoirs, Mamaskatch and Peyakow, and one novel, A Season in Chezgh'un. He became a writer after retiring from a career as a chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government and executive director of education and international affairs with the Assembly of First Nations. He died in 2024 at the age of 67.
The Power of Story by Harold R. Johnson
The Power of Story reflects on the power of storytelling — from personal narratives to historical sagas — as they relate to humanity and even how humans structure societies. Harold R. Johnson makes a case for how stories can shape and change our lives for the better in this posthumous nonfiction work.
Johnson was a member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation. He was a lawyer and writer whose groundbreaking book Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (and Yours) was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction. His other books include Peace and Good Order and Cry Wolf. He died in 2022 at the age of 64.
Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot
In Heart Berries, Terese Marie Mailhot traces her life story. She recalls her dysfunctional upbringing on Seabird Island in B.C., with an activist mother and abusive father, and achieving an acceptance into the Masters of Fine Art program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico. Heart Berries is a memorial for her mother, a story of reconciliation with her father and a way to write her way out of trauma.
Heart Berries was a finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction and the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Mailhot is a writer who was born and raised on Seabird Island, B.C. and now lives in Indiana. Her work has appeared in Time, Mother Jones, The Guardian and Best American Essays 2019.
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott
Alicia Elliott explores the systemic oppression faced by Indigenous peoples across Canada through the lens of her own experiences as a Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River in A Mind Spread Out on the Ground. Elliott examines how colonial violence, including the loss of language, seeps into the present day lives of Indigenous people, often in the form of mental illness.
- Alicia Elliott on why the cultural appropriation debate isn't about free speech — it's about context
Elliott is based in Brantford, Ont. Her writing has been published most recently in Room, Grain and The New Quarterly. She is also the author of the novel And Then She Fell, which won the 2024 Amazon First Novel Award. Elliott is a columnist for CBC Arts and CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2019. She was chosen by Tanya Talaga as the 2018 recipient of the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award.
Our Voice of Fire by Brandi Morin
In Our Voice of Fire, journalist and writer Brandi Morin recounts her experience as a foster kid, runaway and survivor of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis. It follows her journey overcoming adversity to pursue justice and find her power though journalism.
Morin is a writer of Cree, Iroquois and French origin from Treaty 6 territories in Alberta. Her work has been featured in National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, CBC and The New York Times.
Thunder Through My Veins by Gregory Scofield
Gregory Scofield is a poet who has helped shape contemporary Indigenous writing. But the path to becoming an accomplished writer wasn't easy. Scofield's father left him when he was five years old and he grew up surrounded by violence and poverty. But he had the love of his mother, the support of a kind neighbour and a desire to figure out who he was and what he wanted. Thunder Through My Veins is a memoir that recounts Scofield's early life and his experiences defining his identity and place in the world.
Thunder Through My Veins was originally published in 1999, when Scofield was 33, and was re-released with a new foreword in 2020.
Scofield is a Red River Métis of Cree, Scottish and European descent. He was the 2016 recipient of the Latner Writers' Trust Poetry Prize, a $25,000 award given to an accomplished mid-career poet. His poetry collections include The Gathering and Witness, I Am.
From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
Jesse Thistle is a Métis-Cree academic specializing in Indigenous homelessness, addiction and intergenerational trauma. For Thistle, these issues are more than just subjects on the page. After a difficult childhood, Thistle spent much of his early adulthood struggling with addiction while living on the streets of Toronto. Told in short chapters interspersed with poetry, his memoir From the Ashes details how his issues with abandonment and addiction led to homelessness, incarceration and his eventual journey through higher education.
From the Ashes was the top-selling Canadian book in 2020, the winner of the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Nonfiction, Indigenous Voices Award and the High Plains Book Award. It was also a finalist for Canada Reads 2020, when it was championed by George Canyon.
Jesse Thistle is Métis-Cree, from Prince Albert, Sask., and an assistant professor in Humanities at York University in Toronto. Thistle won a Governor General's Academic Medal in 2016. He is a 2016 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar and a 2016 Vanier Scholar. He is also the author of the poetry collection Scars and Stars.
