Sandra Ahenakew is a member of the Ahtahkakoop First Nation. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Indian Studies and an Indian Communication Arts Certificate from the First Nations University of Canada. Sandra currently works full time for the federal government as a Research Assistant in Strategic Planning, prior to that she worked as a communications officer, event planner, reporter/writer, bank teller, and hair dresser to name a few. Sandra is the Vice-President of Breast Cancer Action Saskatchewan in Regina. She also sits on the Saskatchewan Healthy Quality Council as a patient advisor and is a member of the advisory committee for the Saskatchewan Breast Cancer Network. She was involved with the National Cancer Leadership Forum the Campaign to Control Cancer and the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control. Sandra has participated in the World Breast Cancer Conference in Halifax in 2004 and will also be a delegate for the 2008 conference in Winnipeg. Sandra has a passion for issues relating to Aboriginal women and is currently working on developing resources for Aboriginal women facing a diagnosis of breast cancer. As a breast cancer survivor/warrior, Sandra knows the importance of early detection.

Maria Campbell was born in a Métis community near Prince Albert National Park in Northern Saskatchewan. Her people were of mixed Native, French, and Scottish descent, and her great-grandparents, like the ancestors of many of her neighbours, fought alongside Louis Riel at Duck Lake and Batoche. Maria is a writer, playwright, and filmmaker. She is best known for her autobiography, Halfbreed, which relates her struggles as Métis woman in Canadian society. Today Maria continues to write and works for the Indigenous People's Health Research Centre at the University of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company. She has received many awards for her writing and community involvement including Honorary Doctorate degrees from the University of Regina and York University, the Gabriel Dumont Medal for Merit, the Saskatchewan Order of Merit and the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize. Her role as a political activist for Native American rights is something she takes seriously. Maria is also a kookoom, a chaplin, and a quilter.

John Cuthand is a member of the Little Pine First Nation who has worked in Aboriginal media since the mid seventies. His journalism career has taken him across the Prairie Provinces and the North West Territories. He has provided Aboriginal cultural programming to institutions and treatment centres for the past eighteen years. John enjoys snowmobiling and the country life. He would like to write full time when he becomes too feeble to supervise and counsel young people. John has a wife, three daughters, a dog, and a cat.

Jessica Iron is from Canoe Lake First Nation. Formerly a teacher, she decided to quit her day job to pursue a writing career. She began freelance writing in 2009 and now works full-time as a creative writer for Missinipi Broadcasting Corporation – MBC Radio. She has also been working on a couple of novels in her spare time, which will hopefully be published soon.
Jessica loves camping, reading, cooking, eating and of course writing. She’s also addicted to facebook, coffee and her amazing friends and family. She lives in Prince Albert with her fiance Kevin and their three adorable sons, Ronin, Dominic and Tyler.
To contact Jessica, email her at: snazzyjess@hotmail.com. She loves fan mail, hint hint.

Winona L. Wheeler, (Cree/Assiniboine/Saulteaux/Irish), member of the Fisher River First Nation, Manitoba; PhD (Ethnic/Native American Studies), 2000, University of California, Berkeley; MA (History), 1988, University of British Columbia; BA Honors (History), 1986, University of Manitoba. Winona is the daughter of the late Bernelda Wheeler [nee Pratt] from George Gordon’s First Nation in Treaty 4 Territory and Peter Wheeler. Born in Victoria, BC, she has lived all over North American until settling down in Saskatoon in 1988. She grew up in a strong Treaty Rights family that valued traditional teachings, family history, and western education. Raised by a social activist/journalist/writer/actress mother, she was introduced to the political history and contemporary challenges of her people at an early age
Winona began her career as a land claims researcher with the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs in 1979 then returned to school to continue her studies in oral history, written history, anti-colonial theory, Treaty Rights, and Traditional Indigenous Knowledge. She has been a university professor since 1988. Over the course of Winona’s career she has also done conference and workshop presentations, community-based research, historical research, and policy analyses reports, expert witness testimony, and has published numerous articles in journals and books on a range of Indigenous Studies topics.
Winona currently lives in Saskatoon and is a mother, a step-mother, and a partner to Tyrone.

Paul Chartrand is a Métis from St Laurent Manitoba, a law professor and author of numerous publications who is now director of the Aboriginal Governance Program at the University of Winnipeg.
 He has also held university positions in Australia, New Zealand and the USA, and has served on a number of high-profile Aboriginal policy bodies.