By June Coxon
Professional writer, editor, facilitator and consultant, Suzanne Keeptwo spoke to the Media Club about her interesting writing career on May 23, 2023 but her talk, entitled A Writer’s Journey: From Freelance writer to Published Author, included much more than it implied. She spoke at our second in-person meeting since the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions before a small but interested audience, in the MacKenzie Room at the Lord Elgin Hotel after we enjoyed a meal in the hotel’s Grill 41 restaurant.
Suzanne explained that she became a writer “indirectly and accidentally” and that she has no formal writing training although she does have degrees in other areas. Her degree in French Language and Literature positively influenced her English writing skills by osmosis. But when she discussed her family history we learned that while growing up she was introduced to storytelling from both sides of her family. She said that her Irish-Canadian father who worked as an editor-in-chief for a North American publishing company, was her hardest critic when it came to her writing. But when she first landed a contract as a professional editor, he was her greatest mentor. Her mother’s Métis-Francophone family comes from a historic fur trade community in Western Quebec, where Suzanne spent much time listening to “a lot of storytelling.”
Suzanne told us that before embarking on her writing career she worked as a French Second Language teacher. In addition to editing and writing for newspapers, most frequently for the Antshinabek News, Over the years her other jobs included teaching Native Studies, and being a freelance contributor and adviser at the National Arts Centre. Suzanne is currently delving into professional storytelling, sharing her lived experiences and the origins of both sides of her family. She said she enjoys bridging the gaps of understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians and that she has worked across Canada providing cultural awareness training to a variety of clients. She is currently dedicated to highlighting the truth and history of “the other” Métis, especially those in Quebec.
Suzanne’s published book, We All Go Back to the Land: The Who, Why and How of Land Acknowledgements, came out in 2021. It was written during COVID isolation over a four-and-a-half month period. Suzanne recalls “writing for 17 hours a day, seven days a week.”
During her presentation Suzanne touched briefly on the topic of Land Acknowledgements, noting that information about problematic land acknowledgements is part of her book. She said she sees such acknowledgements as “an opportunity for Indigenous people of Canada to communicate a message to non-Indigenous Canadians – a message founded upon old wisdom that about how to sustain the land we all want to call home. It’s an essential narrative for truth sharing and knowledge acquisition.
But “Land Acknowledgement,” she continued, “is becoming so routine and forumatic that the intention is being lost.” This is exactly what her book addresses.
Although this was not part of her discussion, she also had a short story published in our award winning anthology COVID-19 Chronicles: Reflections on the 2020 Pandemic.
After our meeting one person aptly summed up Suzanne’s talk by two words – “Remarkable evening.”