Deanna Reder:
“In 2006, in my last year
of grad school, I had the privilege to see a play by dramatherapist Vera
Manuel, daughter of Secwepemc political leader George Manuel and Ktunaxa
community worker Marceline Paul. The play was produced in Vancouver by the
Helping Spirit Lodge Society and when I went to speak to its director, Geni
Manuel, I discovered that she was Vera’s niece. It was in that conversation
that Geni gave me several unpublished plays that her association had put
together under Vera’s direction. I really wanted to do something with these
plays for a long, long time, but was overwhelmed when I began my new job in
2007 and by my uncertainty about what to do with them. At the same time, I was
working with Metis scholar Jo-Ann Episkenew and Algonquian scholar Michelle
Coupal. At one point, Jo-Ann gave Michelle a photocopy of the only play Vera
had ever published, in 1986, which had fallen out of print: Strength of Indian Women about
residential school experiences. Jo-Ann insisted: “You’ve got to teach this.” In
a later conversation, Michelle told me, “We’ve got to get this play back into
publication,” and I realized that this was the chance to work together with her
on the plays entrusted to me several years previously. This itself was an amazing
chance to work together, but then, a few months later, we bumped into Joanne
Arnott, a Metis poet I’ve known for years, only to discover that, in the last
year of Vera’s life, Joanne had begun curating a collection of Vera’s poetry.
At first it was a shock. Michelle and I immediately recognized that we as
academics had a lot more access to publishing and power. What could we do to
support a project directed by an independent poet? And then of course it just
seemed obvious: we should work together. This snowballed when we connected with
Vera’s sister, Emalene, who had saved Vera’s archive. Imagine our sense of
wonder when we came across some of Vera’s stories that were written in 1988,
stories that are drop-dead gorgeous, needing practically no editing. And
suddenly what was going to be “The Plays and Poetry of VeraManuel” became “The
Plays, Stories, and Poetry of Vera Manuel.” The title of the volume, due in
2018, is Honouring the Strength of Indian
Women.”
Deanna Reder in conversation with Sophie McCall, Culturally Appropriate
Publishing Practices, p. 35-6, in Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples
By Gregory Young-Ing © 2018 Brush Education Inc.
~
Two Plays About Residential School 20th Anniversary edition, paper ed
Two Plays About Residential School (Indigenous Education Press) honours the fearless voices of residential school survivor Larry Loyie (Cree, 1933-2016) and intergenerational survivor Vera Manuel (Secwepemc / Ktunaxa, 1949-2010).
