KATHERENA VERMETTE (she/her) is a Red River Métis (Michif) writer from Treaty 1 territory, the heart of the Métis Nation. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia and has worked in poetry, novels, children’s literature, and film. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, her father’s roots run deep in St. Boniface, St. Norbert, and beyond. Her mother’s side is Mennonite from the Altona and Rosenfeld area (Treaty 1). Vermette received the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry for her first book, North End Love Songs. Her first novel, The Break, won several awards including the Amazon First Novel Award, and was a bestseller in Canada. Her second novel, The Strangers, won the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and named Indigo’s 2021 Book of the Year. She lives with her family in a cranky old house within skipping distance of the temperamental Red River.