Bio

I am a writer, public historian, dancer, theatre artist, and educator. My latest book, Where Histories Meet: Indigenous and Settler Encounters in the Toronto Area was released by University of Calgary Press in September 2025. It is based on the research I conducted for the Changing the Narrative project with the Village at Black Creek (formerly Black Creek Pioneer Village), York University History Department, and five local First Nations : the Mississaugas of the Credit, Six Nations of the Grand River, Chippewas of Rama, Chippewas of Georgina Island, and Mississaugas of Scugog. 

I was born in Ottawa, where I attended Lisgar Collegiate, and now live in Toronto, Canada. I received my PhD in History from the University of Toronto in 2010. My dissertation, “‘Toronto Has No History!‘ Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism and Historical Memory in Canada’s Largest City,” was an attempt to challenge settler amnesia and dominant historical paradigms.  For several years, I taught Indigenous history at York University and developed and taught a bilingual Canadian Studies course called Decolonizing Canada/Décoloniser le Canada, at Glendon College, York’s bilingual campus. I retired from teaching in 2020, but have continued to contribute to historical research as an independent scholar. Going forward, my main focus is on new creative work.

My first book, Distant Relations: How My Ancestors Colonized North America, was shortlisted for the 2000 Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.

My second book, A World without Martha: A Memoir of Sisters, Disability, and Difference, is about my experience as a sibling of a child with Down Syndrome who was institutionalized. It was released by UBC Press on October 1, 2019 and was shortlisted for the 2020 Lambda literary award for Bisexual Non-Fiction. My late sister Martha was a resident at the Rideau Regional Centre at Smiths Falls, Ontario, from 1960 to 1973.

I am the co-creator, with L’Arche Toronto Sol Express and Cheryl Zinyk, of Birds Make Me Think About Freedom, a play about the experiences of people institutionalized for intellectual disability, which won a Patron’s Pick award at the 2018 Toronto Fringe Festival. It has since been performed at Flying to Freedom, a March 2019 event marking the 10th anniversary of the closing of Ontario institutions, and in London, Ontario, on October 22, 2019, before its run was halted by the pandemic. The team is hoping to remount the production for a performance in Ottawa in December 2026.

As the Talking Treaties Collective,  Ange Loft, Martha Stiegman, Jill Carter, and I co-created A Treaty Guide for Torontonians, which was launched at the 2022 Toronto Biennial of Art and published by the Jumblies Theatre + Arts, Toronto Biennial of Art, and Art Metropole. A second edition was published by Art Metropole, and a third printing is in the works.

With Ange Loft of Jumblies Theatre, I also cowrote The Talking Treaties Spectacle,  a Jumblies Theatre community arts performance focused on Toronto area treaties and their contemporary significance, first performed at Fort York as part of the Indigenous Arts Festival in June 2017 and remounted October 4-7, 2018. With Martha Stiegman, we co-created an art and video installation, By These Presents: “Purchasing” Toronto, which ran September 21 – December 1, 2019 as part of the first Toronto Biennial of Art. The video created for this installation has been screened at film festivals in Canada,  the US, and Scotland.

I live with Mark Fawcett and have two adult children. I identify as queer and genderfluid. My current passion is top rope climbing.