Indigenous author and storyteller Sherry Lawson is the next speaker in the Ancestral Voices series at the Newmarket Public Library tonight, Sept. 13.
Lawson is the middle daughter of an Anishinaabe father and an Algonkinan mother. She grew up on the Rama Reserve, now where Casino Rama is, in the late 1950s. She has trained and worked as a librarian, archivist, indexer and anthropologist.
She began writing about her life to leave a record for her grandchildren.
In a virtual event at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 13, Lawson will speak about her biographical books and the place of oral storytelling in community.
"It is very much a personal life reflection and it's exciting to kind of have a peek sometimes. It's a way of life and still considered the great unknown for Canadians at large. People are very, very curious about Indigenous people across this country and really seem to have no idea that we're contemporary citizens now," said Kim Wheatley, one of the developers of the Ancestral Voices series.
Wheatley, who is an Anishinaabe consultant and public speaker, said she was approached by Maxine Gordon Palomino, who is of Jamaican heritage.
"Maxine approached me a couple of years ago, and pitched the idea of holding public safe place for Indigenous and Black African and Caribbean voices and wondering if I would be interested in holding up the Indigenous end," she said.
The pair collaborated with the library to organize what Wheatley called fireside chats. The informal, intimate talks allow people to connect with the speaker and learn from them.
She said the talks are "an entry point into the living voice of those people, and what it's like to walk a day in our shoes as people of colour. We know that racism is on the rise in this country, we know that there's still a lot of violence being directed at people of colour. And it just seemed like a really good fit for Indigenous and Black, African and Caribbean voices to come together."
Since the series began in 2021, both Palomino and Wheatley have helped bring a number of notable speakers to the Ancestral Voices series. That includes Waubgeshig Rice, Francesca Ekwuyasi, Joanne Robertson, and Khodi Dill, among others.
"We've chosen a wide variety of artists based on our own personal network and interests but we're always open to expanding and the intention was to just hold that space in place in the Town of Newmarket, where we felt we were being underrepresented and under recognized and this is not shared as a criticism. It's just an observation," Wheatley said.
She said the series has been a rich experience and one that she wants to expand to more people.
"It's been a remarkable, joyful experience for us, and one that we're firmly attached to and want to grow in a much broader sense. And our dream is to perhaps turn this into a podcast," she said.
Anyone can attend the talks and you don't need to be a member of the Newmarket Public Library to register. Registration is available online through the library's website. The event is virtual and will be held over Zoom.
Attendance is free but you are asked to consider making a donation to the Newmarket Public Library's fundraising reserve that funds the Ancestral Voices series.
