A local playwright is stepping into the spotlight as a published author.
Joelle Peters, an Anishinaabe award-winning playwright and actor from Walpole Island First Nation, marked the world premiere of her play Niizh at Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto in the spring of 2023. Now she is celebrating another first, a book launch for the newly published play as part of Toronto Lit Up, a program to showcase works by authors living in Toronto.
Niizh is a coming of age romantic comedy, following Leena Little as she prepares to leave her southwestern Ontario First Nations reserve and family for the first time to go off to school.
Peters says being included in the Toronto Lit Up festival will hopefully get her book into more hands and the play onto more stages.
“Anytime that I’ve heard people talking about it or the folks that have seen it, or having read it now that it’s published, it’s continuing to make ways and is so honouring of the story that I set out write, seeing that Indigenous love, that coming of age, I get so swept up in the possibilities of it.”
Peters says the book speaks to any audience member or reader that might be able to see their own stories in the characters.
“What grounds me in it is seeing the impact, not only on local folks who have read it or the local Walpole and Wallaceburg students that saw the production in Toronto, it’s really about what people are seeing and receiving from the story that keeps it going for me.”
The goal of Toronto Lit Up is to spotlight Toronto writers and empower local artists with career-building opportunities.
Niizh is now available for purchase through Playwrights Canada Press.