mother tongue media | tawhida tanya evanson

Tawhida Tanya Evanson is a poet, author, producer and Ashik whose poetry collections include Bothism (Ekstasis Editions 2017) and Nouveau Griot (Frontenac House 2018). Her debut novel Book of Wings (Véhicule Press 2021) won the 2022 New Contribution Literary Prize, was on the 2022 CBC Canada Reads Longlist and was one of Quill & Quire’s 2021 Books of the Year. She also has work in literary journals and anthologies, most recently When We Exhale (Black Freighter Press 2023), Changing the Face of Canadian Literature (Guernica 2020), The Fiddlehead and UPPERCASE.

With a twenty-five-year practice in spoken word, she has performed at literary festivals in over a dozen countries and released four studio albums and six videopoems including the award-winning Almost Forgot my Bones. In 2013, she was Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and received the Golden Beret Award for her contribution to the genre. She is director of the Banff Centre Spoken Word program and president of The Quebec Writers’ Federation. As MOTHER TONGUE MEDIA she produces interarts projects including ANU, Sema Space and the upcoming 2023 Afrofuturist concert film CYANO SUN SUITE. Born and based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka Territory, she moonlights as a whirling dervish.