Suzanne Methot is the author of the award-winning non-fiction book Legacy: Trauma, Story, and Indigenous Healing (ECW Press, 2019) and the new YA book Killing the Wittigo: Indigenous Culture-Based Approaches to Waking Up, Taking Action, and Doing the Work of Healing (ECW Press, 2023). She is also co-author of the Grade 11 textbook Aboriginal Beliefs, Values, and Aspirations (Goodminds/Pearson Canada, 2011) and a contributor to Scholastic Canada’s Take Action series of elementary classroom resource books.
Suzanne has 30 years of experience creating and applying equity and anti-oppression frameworks, beginning as an adult literacy and skills training practitioner (since 1991) and then as an elementary classroom teacher specializing in social justice education (since 2007). During this time, she worked in advocacy and direct-service positions at Indigenous-led organizations including the marginalized by racism, poverty, homelessness, health status, addictions, mental-health challenges, crime, and victimization.
A social historian who is interested in the ways people and societies carry their stories, Suzanne has worked as an education officer at the Art Gallery of Ontario, lectured on Indigenous literatures at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Education, and been a guest lecturer for the Indigenous Journalism program at the First Nations Technical Institute at Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. She has also been a guest speaker, presenter, and panel moderator at the First Peoples Wellness Circle, Maskwacis Cultural College, the Loft Literary Centre, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Shkaabe Makwa Gathering, the Indspire National Gathering for Indigenous Education, Concordia University, the Tamarack Institute, Columbia University, the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, the Toronto Reference Library, the Hot Docs Film Festival teacher professional development conference, and the Halton District School Board’s 2018 Human Rights Symposium. Suzanne has also appeared on Metro Morning (CBC Radio One Toronto), Saskatchewan Weekend (CBC Radio One), Ottawa Morning (CBC Radio One), KALW San Francisco, and ELMNT FM.
Suzanne’s fiction, non-fiction, and poetry has been published in several anthologies, and her feature articles, guest columns, and reviews have appeared in Open Book, Edutopia, All Lit Up, the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, Quill & Quire, Windspeaker, Ontario Birchbark, and Canadian Geographic. She has over 30 years’ experience as an in-house and freelance editor, working as managing editor of Fireweed: A Feminist Quarterly, editorial director of the magazine Fuse: Art Culture Politics, in-house copy editor/proofreader for NOW weekly, in-house copy editor/proofreader for Vancouver/Toronto/Ottawa Computes, editor of the Anishinabek News, and in-house editor/proofreader at Carswell (now Thomson Reuters) in the Business Reference Group. She was also principal editor for Ningwakwe Learning Press for many years, creating Indigenous culture-based resources for adult literacy learners and practitioners. Suzanne continues to work as an editor, content reviewer, and sensitivity reader for book publishers and post-secondary institutions.
From 2014 to 2019, Suzanne was an appointee to the Royal Ontario Museum’s Indigenous Advisory Circle, assisting the ROM Learning Department in building authentic and sustainable relationships with Indigenous communities. She also served on the Program Advisory Committee for Durham College’s Faculty of Journalism and Mass Media from 2016-2019. In 2020, Suzanne became a member of the Voice of Witness Education Advisory.
Born in Vancouver in 1968 and raised in Sagitawa (Peace River, Alberta), Suzanne is Asiniwachi Nehiyaw (Rocky Mountain Cree) of mixed Indigenous and European heritage. She lived for 29 years in Wendat–Haudenosaunee–Anishinabeg territory in Toronto, and now makes her home on the unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw Nation, near Nanaimo, BC.
Suzanne is represented by CookeMcDermid Literary Management.
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