Chelsea Vowel, who often writes as âpihtawikosisân (
Cree syllabics
Cree syllabics are the versions of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics used to write Cree dialects, including the original syllabics system created for Cree and Ojibwe. There are two main varieties of syllabics for Cree: Western Cree syllabics and ...
: ,
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners ...
: , i.e., Métis, lit. "half-son"), is a Métis writer and lawyer from near Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta, whose work focuses on language, gender identity, and cultural resurgence. She has been published in the '' Huffington Post'', ''
The National Post
The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with Mo ...
'', and ''
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
''. Co-host of the
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
account, Vowel has been noted as a "prominent and respected Métis blogger" and "one of the most visible of henew generation" of Métis intellectuals.
, Vowel was completing a master's student in Native Studies and was a Cree language instructor at the
University of Alberta
The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...
.
Education
Vowel received a Bachelor in Education degree from the University of Alberta in 2000. After graduating, she taught in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, before returning to graduate with Bachelor of Law degree in 2009. After completing her law degree, she moved to Montreal, where she worked with
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
youth who were in the
foster care
Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home ( residential child care community, treatment center, etc.), or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent" or with a family ...
system, including those sentenced under the ''Youth Criminal Justice Act.'' In 2016, she returned to Alberta to begin a Masters program in Native Studies at the University of Alberta.
Writing
In 2014, she published two essays in the collection ''The Winter We Danced: Voices From the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement''.
In 2016, she released her first book, ''Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada'', a collection of essays aimed at explaining Indigenous issues in the Canadian context to non-Indigenous people. The collection was praised for Vowel's "caustic style and astute insights" and compared favorably to Thomas King's ''The Inconvenient Indian''. It earned Vowel a nomination for the Concordia University First Book Prize. ''Indigenous Writes'' was also featured on numerous 2017 and 2018 to-read lists by the CBC, Globe and Mail, and other publications.
In 2018, Vowel contributed a poem to the critical anthology ''Refuse: CanLit in Ruins,'' which engages with historical and current issues in Canadian literature.
In 2019, she contributed to the graphic novel anthology ''This Place: 150 Years Retold'', which chronicles the last 150 years of colonialism in Canada through the perspectives of acclaimed Indigenous authors such as Richard Van Camp and
Katherena Vermette
Katherena Vermette (born 29 January 1977) is a Canadian writer, who won the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry in 2013 for her collection ''North End Love Songs''.Idle No More: Blockade ' role-playing video game. This game is told from the perspective of a young Cree woman who is working to defend traditional land, with the hope of having players identify with the struggle of Indigenous communities and to learn about the
Idle No More
Idle No More is an ongoing protest movement, founded in December 2012 by four women: three First Nations women and one non-Native ally. It is a grassroots movement among the Indigenous peoples in Canada comprising the First Nations, Métis ...
movement.
In 2018 OpenCanada included Vowel on their annual Twitterati list which highlights the work of Indigenous people responding to policy in Canada and abroad.