[IPSM] Aboriginal Women's anthology call for submissions

[nora butler burke]

Plume Writers Circle is a Collective of Aboriginal Writers here in the 
Guelph, Cambridge and Kitchener-Waterloo region which started in Spring 
2002. We are currently putting together an anthology of Aboriginal 
writers in this area for publication.
The Vision of Plume Writers’ Circle is to support and encourage our 
Aboriginal families, to share our voices in the written word, and seek 
wisdom through connecting relationships needed to rebalance our communities.

Our Goals/ Mandate is to

*provide a platform for our Native voices and to strengthen our 
Aboriginal contribution to the literary world
* Expand the dialogue and further the understandings of critical issues 
between Aboriginal peoples and the mainstream population
* To empower Aboriginal people to come together and break the silence 
regarding the impact of colonization
* Work to increase mainstream Canada’s understandings and appreciation 
of our diversity and various traditions, and to deconstruct the 
stereotyping of Aboriginal experience
* To provide a place in which incarcerated and institutionalized 
Aboriginal people can publish and share their personal stories
* To carry on our oral traditions and bring our voices into the 
contemporary world

Plume Writers’ Circle is publishing an anthology with a range of themes 
and styles to reflect the transitional nature of contemporary urban 
Native consciousness in this region. We wish to bring our oratorical 
traditions to our writing, including
the works of community elders, men, women, children, Metis, Native 
adoptees, two-spirited people, Native people institutionalized in the 
Maplehurst and Grand Valley Correctional Centers, and others of our 
diverse nations from across
Turtle Island. We seek to have different urban perspectives and areas of 
knowledge represented, through oral stories, poetry, short stories, 
essays, interviews of community members, teachings and scripts, personal 
reflections – whether academic, political, or personal. The anthology’s 
content will reflect our urban Aboriginal realities, as parents, 
students, youth, workers,
artists, helpers and survivors – as writers who dream of a new future, 
seeking the truth to refine, retrieve and reconcile our scattered 
pieces. We will contrast the stereotype of the Indian as mute and 
illiterate through the context of our linguistic and cultural roots with 
amazing words, cultivated words, true words.

The aim of the anthology is to share our humanity as writers. It is an 
opportunity to transcend our own prejudices and politics, and to 
challenge those in the larger community. By sharing our humanity we 
share our dreams, our fears, our loves, our pain, making this anthology 
a potential tool for other Native communities, social services agencies, 
educators, etc.

Submission requirements:
The Anthology is 100 pages and will be launched in Spring/Summer 2007. 
Please send us writing that is no more than 5 pages per individual 
piece. If you have a really good piece that is a little longer, you can 
send it anyway, and we can see if we can
work it out, but we are aiming at no more than 5 pages per author. You 
can send you writing to us by email at the addresses below, in Word or 
Rich Text format. Or you can drop your writing off at the Guelph 
Anishnabeg Outreach Office, or at
Weejeendimin Native Resource Centre in Kitchener. Make sure you have the 
original, as unfortunately we are not able to return submissions. Please 
send no more than 10 pieces per person.

Deadline for Submissions: November 30, 2006

We are looking forward to a wonderful anthology and have been very moved 
by the support we have received from the local community and the Ontario 
Arts Council.

Our website is http://www.guelpharts.ca/plumewriterscircle. You can 
email us online at plumewriterscircle at guelpharts.ca, or phone Hope Engel 
at 519-827-1275, or Cynthia Missabie at 519-763-3534.

Chi Miigwetch,
Skennon,
All Our Relations,
Plume Writers Circle