Heather Simeney MacLeod
Writer
Heather Simeney MacLeod
(she/her/hers) is a Michif writer.
About
Heather Simeney MacLeod
Heather Simeney MacLeod is a Red River Metis (Michif) writer from Treaty 6 territory.
Born in Edmonton, her Michif lineage on her maternal side can be traced back five generations to the founding of the Metis Nation in the Red River Settlement. Her paternal side is Scottish from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
She has published four books of poetry: My Flesh the Sound of Rain (Coteau Books), The Burden of Snow (Turnstone Press), Intermission (Muses’ Press), and The Little Yellow House (McGill University Press). Heather’s creative nonfiction won first prize in the Malahat Review’s contest, and her creative nonfiction has been longlisted in the esteemed CBC Creative Nonfiction prize twice. Her short fiction was recently shortlisted in The Capilano Review contest, and her poetry won second prize in Room’s poetry contest in 2022.
Heather holds a Ph. D. from the University of Alberta, a Masters in Social Sciences from the University of Edinburgh, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Victoria. She works as an Associate Teaching Professor at Thompson Rivers University for the Department of Communication and Visual Arts.
Heather lives with her son and a cranky cat at the confluence of the North and South Thompson Rivers.
Books
“... a vibrant, gem of a book, and Heather Simeney MacLeod is a poet who certainly deserves wider recognition.” The Globe and Mail
“In her latest collection, Heather Simeney MacLeod writes of the interrelations between time, race, and culture that comprise experience. A resounding book of depth, tragedy, and humor.” The Times Colonist
“With her mystical connections, innovative metaphors, and love of language, Heather Simeney MacLeod is the 21st-century incarnation of Gwendolyn MacEwen.” Canadian Book Review
“Imaginative power and a strong sense of form.” Canadian Book Review
Books
The Little Yellow House
Published with McGill University Press, Heather’s fourth book of poetry explores masterpieces, biblical stories, scientific theories, notions of reincarnation, and engages them with the plain, the lucid, and yet vibrant characters that resound with significance and vigor. A spirited and remarkable collection, The Little Yellow House joins together the everyday and the extraordinary.
Books
Intermission
Published by The Muses’ Company, Intermission is an uncommon and refreshing excavation of popular culture, memory, and relationship. It offers startling interpretations of the fashionable sitcoms and young-adult novels which were prevalent during the late 1970s while exploring the nuances of belonging, faith, and loss. With a tensile gesture we are moved from the icons of the 1960s Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and the playful insertion of Jim Morrison’s documented acronym of his own name, Mr. Mojo Risin’ to the cityscapes inherited by Generation X. Intermission is peopled with a richness of character and stories that move from one piece to the next. It is a still and revealing inquiry into the elastic sense of memory.
Books
The Burden of Snow
Published by Turnstone Books, in this collection of poems, Heather Simeney MacLeod maps out the intertwining threads of personal history and follows bloodlines and trap lines, as well as mapping out ancestral migrations from Ireland and Scotland to British Columbia and back again. She suggests that the mystery of one’s own composition is as puzzling and far-reaching as the experience of life itself. Traveling around the world with stops in Turkey, the United States, and myriad other places, MacLeod’s narrator finally decides that who we are is defined by how we carry the burden of life, and how we share it with others. For, like the snow that permeates her history, her thoughts, and her poetry, MacLeod reveals that life and love at first appear weightless, and then collect on our limbs and bear down; challenging us to stand, to absorb, to accept, and to carry on.
Books
My Flesh the Sound of Rain
Heather’s first book of poetry was published by Coteau Books and appeared in their Open Eye Series, which was designed to instigate an interest in poetry and contemporary poets. At the time Heather was living in Yellowknife in the arctic of Canada. Coteau Books described it as “masterfully bind[ing] together aboriginal and white myth. Many nations inhabit the northern world she explores in powerfully plain language.”
Writing
Click on the photos to be taken to a few online pieces of writing by Heather
Socials
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