Bio:
I am of English, Irish and Assiniboine descent, and a member of South Island Métis Nation. For 20 years, I had the honour of working and living within the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Sto:lo peoples of Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. Through systemic colonization, my maternal grandparents were both disconnected from their Indigenous roots. At my grandfather's behest, my mother, my children and I have dedicated much of our lives reclaiming what we can of their - and our - Indigenous heritage. This personal reclamation through ongoing cultural disconnect has heavily influenced my creative endeavours as a screenwriter. |
These include my own feature script PB&J, Mosaic Entertainment's White Mask, Massey Productions’ The Carving Shed, Sweetgrass and Sage’s What the Elders Know and Loremasters, Joe Media’s Redlaw (with Paul Gertz), Pangaryk Productions’ Broken Knives, and the award-winning television pilot script The Late Gate, which won Gold at the 2010 PAGE Screenwriting Awards and an Award of Excellence at the 2011 Canada Film Festival.
After a few stints as a story editor on various lifestyle and reality TV programs, my career truly launched in 2010, when APTN - the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network - greenlit my one-off documentary Our Home & Native Land: Heroine Healers, which I wrote and co-produced under the mentorship of the late Pati Olson.
APTN provides an essential forum for storytelling from inside a wide variety of Indigenous experiences. It's been a great privilege to work with them many times over the years, predominantly on my documentary series Chaos & Courage - which I wrote and co-produced, and which was nominated for Best Writing in a Documentary Series at the 2014 Leo Awards - and the docudrama series 1491, which I story edited, and which won three Leo Awards in 2018, including Best Screenwriting and Best Documentary Program.
In 2019, I story edited three episodes of Great Pacific Media's Queen of the Oil Patch (II) (APTN), of which Girl Brain was nominated for a the 2020 Gemini Award for Best Writing in a Lifestyle Television Series.
Another past project was Grand Theft Terra Firma: Stories of (Re)Conciliation. A collaboration between the University of the Fraser Valley and the Sto:lo First Nation, GTTF showcased twelve women, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, as we shared our stories of overcoming trauma. Launched in 2017, this interactive performance piece was designed to cultivate understanding, empathy, and ultimately, community healing. My contributions focused on the disturbing statistics reflecting the disparities experienced by Indigenous peoples today, and my own journey through cultural disconnect, lateral violence and personal reclamation.
In 2009, four years after graduating from Vancouver Film School's Writing Program, I was invited back as a faculty member and served in that capacity until COVID hit in 2020. I have also taught at InFocus Film School and Vancouver Community College, and have instructed screenwriting at Capilano University through its Independent Indigenous Digital Filmmaking (IIDF) Program.
I am represented by Anna Archer at Lucas Talent in Vancouver.
After a few stints as a story editor on various lifestyle and reality TV programs, my career truly launched in 2010, when APTN - the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network - greenlit my one-off documentary Our Home & Native Land: Heroine Healers, which I wrote and co-produced under the mentorship of the late Pati Olson.
APTN provides an essential forum for storytelling from inside a wide variety of Indigenous experiences. It's been a great privilege to work with them many times over the years, predominantly on my documentary series Chaos & Courage - which I wrote and co-produced, and which was nominated for Best Writing in a Documentary Series at the 2014 Leo Awards - and the docudrama series 1491, which I story edited, and which won three Leo Awards in 2018, including Best Screenwriting and Best Documentary Program.
In 2019, I story edited three episodes of Great Pacific Media's Queen of the Oil Patch (II) (APTN), of which Girl Brain was nominated for a the 2020 Gemini Award for Best Writing in a Lifestyle Television Series.
Another past project was Grand Theft Terra Firma: Stories of (Re)Conciliation. A collaboration between the University of the Fraser Valley and the Sto:lo First Nation, GTTF showcased twelve women, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, as we shared our stories of overcoming trauma. Launched in 2017, this interactive performance piece was designed to cultivate understanding, empathy, and ultimately, community healing. My contributions focused on the disturbing statistics reflecting the disparities experienced by Indigenous peoples today, and my own journey through cultural disconnect, lateral violence and personal reclamation.
In 2009, four years after graduating from Vancouver Film School's Writing Program, I was invited back as a faculty member and served in that capacity until COVID hit in 2020. I have also taught at InFocus Film School and Vancouver Community College, and have instructed screenwriting at Capilano University through its Independent Indigenous Digital Filmmaking (IIDF) Program.
I am represented by Anna Archer at Lucas Talent in Vancouver.