Christy Jordan-Fenton - Say Your Name: Storytelling for Healing and Empowerment

Topic: Say Your Name: Storytelling for Healing and Empowerment

Christy Jordan-Fenton, author of four award-winning books about her children’s Inuvialuk grandmother, Margaret Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton, discusses how crafting a personal story can open the doors to new possibilities. Jordan-Fenton explores the traditional art of claiming your story through the lens of her experiences working with Margaret, an Indian Residential School survivor from the High Western Arctic region of Canada, who went on to be a nationally heroine.

About "Christy Jordan-Fenton":

Christy Jordan-Fenton is the author of four award winning children’s books, to include the bestselling Fatty Legs, about her late Inuvialuk mother and best friend, Olemaun Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, who attended an Arctic residential school in the 1940s. Prior to 2020 she and Margaret travelled internationally giving more than 100 presentations a year, highlighting the strength and courage of Indigenous children who were forced to be their own heroes during their time at horrific government boarding schools. Margaret passed in April of 2020, but Christy continues to share Margaret’s story, with her blessing. Christy currently works as a curriculum designer and facilitator of capacity building programs with northern Indigenous communities in BC, and is a co-director of the nonprofit Cultural Learning and Innovation Circle, as well as a brand storyteller. She is also a member of the Yellow Thunder ceremonial family of the Kainai Blackfoot. Some of the places her work has appeared include Water~Stone Review, Jones Ave., Prairie Fire Magazine, Quills, and in the anthology Power of the Storm, dedicated to John Trudell.

Links:

• Watch the training: Say Your Name: Storytelling for Healing and Empowerment