Tanya Talaga facts for kids

Tanya Talaga, born in 1970, is a Canadian journalist and author. She is known for her powerful writing about Indigenous issues in Canada. Tanya has Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) and Polish family roots.

For over 20 years, she worked as a journalist at the Toronto Star newspaper. There, she wrote about many topics, including health, education, and important investigations. Today, Tanya owns her own media company called Makwa Creative. She also writes a regular column for The Globe and Mail newspaper.

Her book, Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City, was published in 2017. It won several major awards, including the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize for non-fiction. In 2024, she released a new book called The Knowing. This book shares Canadian history and the story of residential schools from an Indigenous point of view. It starts with the life of her great-great-grandmother, Annie Carpenter. Tanya Talaga was the first Anishinaabe woman to be chosen as a CBC Massey Lecturer, which is a big honor.

Early Life and School

Tanya Talaga has a mixed background. Her family includes Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) and Polish heritage. Her grandmother is from the Fort William First Nation. Her great-grandmother, Liz Gauthier, was a survivor of the Canadian Indian residential school system. These were schools where Indigenous children were forced to go, often far from their families.

Tanya grew up in Toronto. She spent her summers with her mother's family in Raith, Ontario. This is a small community near Thunder Bay. When she was 20, she learned that some of her mother's siblings had grown up in foster care. These family experiences later influenced her work. She wrote about the lasting effects of residential schools on families.

Tanya studied history and political science at the University of Toronto. While there, she wrote and edited the university's student newspaper, The Varsity.

Her Career

Tanya Talaga started working at the Toronto Star in 1995 as an intern. An intern is someone who works to gain experience. For 14 years, she was a general city reporter. This meant she covered many different types of news stories. In 2009, she moved to the Queen's Park Bureau. This is where reporters cover the provincial government. She also wrote a special column about Indigenous issues.

Seven Fallen Feathers

Her first book, Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City, came out in 2017. It received great praise and was nominated for many awards. The book looks into the deaths of seven First Nations young people in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Tanya began writing this story when she was asked to report on why more First Nations people were not voting. However, she found that many people wanted her to focus on the deaths of the young people instead.

Massey Lectures and Other Works

In 2018, Tanya Talaga gave the important Massey Lectures. These talks were called All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward. Her second book, All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward, is based on these lectures. In 2020, this book was one of five chosen for the British Academy's Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize. This award recognizes books that help people understand different cultures.

Tanya also created her first podcast, called Seven Truths. A podcast is like a radio show you can listen to online. This seven-episode series shares modern stories through the lens of the Anishinaabe Seven Grandfather Teachings. It was released by Audible in November 2020.

Tanya Talaga also owns a company called Makwa Creative Inc. This company produces films. Her documentary film Spirit to Soar was shown for the first time in 2021. It premiered at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. The film won the Audience Award in its category.

Awards and Recognition

Tanya Talaga has received many awards for her writing and journalism.

Book Awards

Here are some awards for her book Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City:

• RBC Taylor Prize (2018)
• Shaughnessy Cohen Prize (2018)
• Periodical Marketers of Canada, Indigenous Literature Award (2018)
• Finalist, B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction (2018)
• Nominee, Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction (2018)
• Finalist, Speaker's Book Award (2017)

Fellowships

• Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy (2017–2018)

Journalism Awards

• National Newspaper Award for the Gone Series (2015)
• National Newspaper Award, for a year-long project on the Rana Plaza building collapse (2013)
• Michener Award in public service journalism, nominated five times