UWinnipeg grad a rising literary star

Fri. Oct. 21, 2016

UWinnipeg graduate Katherena Vermette already has one Governor General’s award and was shortlisted for a second one for her debut novel, The Break, about a young Métis mother in Winnipeg’s North End. The novel is garnering strong reviews from national media and critics including the Globe and Mail, which calls it “an incredible feat of storytelling.” Her first book, North End Love Songs (The Muses Company) won the Governor General Literary Award for Poetry in 2013.

Vermette says her Métis identity is an intrinsic influence.

“I’ve always known my culture. It is who I am.” She credits her years at UWinnipeg with helping to shape her as a writer and it’s also where she connected with the Indigenous Writers Collective and the Writers Collective of Manitoba, important support networks of peers.