★ [Akiwenzie-Damm's] luminescent prose in this book dances "like jingle dress dancers," and is somehow still compressed to shining perfection - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

In the Anishnaabe language and worldview, stones are alive, infused with life force or spirit. Although many of the stories are about loss, under that surface they are alive, celebrating the beauty and preciousness of life.—Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm

In these 14 unique stories, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm takes on complex and dangerous emotions, exploring the gamut of modern Anishinaabe experience. Through unforgettable characters, these stories—about love and lust, suicide and survival, illness and wholeness—illuminate the strange workings of the human heart.

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is a member of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, on the Saugeen Peninsula in Ontario. Kateri is an Assistant Professor, teaching Creative Writing, Indigenous Literatures and Oral Traditions in the English Department at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. She has taught creative writing and Indigenous literatures at the University of Manitoba, the Banff Centre's Aboriginal Arts Program, and the En'owkin International School of Writing in partnership with the University of Victoria. Her publications encompass poetry, fiction, non-fiction, radio plays, television and film, libretti, graphic novels, and spoken word. Her teaching and creative work is firmly decolonial, a practice of cultural resurgence, affirmation and survivance. She is a recipient of a REVEAL Indigenous Arts Award for writing, her 2015 book of short stories, The Stone Collection, was a finalist for the Sarton Literary Book Awards, and her collaborative recording A Constellation of Bones was a nominee for a 2008 Canadian Aboriginal Music Award. Kateri was the 2011-2012 Poet Laureate for Owen Sound and North Grey. She founded and coordinated the first Honouring Words: International Indigenous Authors Celebration Tour in 2003 and initiated and was a co-organizer for the first Indigenous Comics Symposium in 2021. She is the founder, publisher, and art director for Kegedonce Press. (Re)Generation: The Poetry of Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, selected and edited by Dallas Hunt, was released in August 2021. She is currently completing work on a new collection of poetry and a collection of humourous short stories.

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm's profile page

• Nominated, Sarten's Women Book Award

The Stone Collection is a stunning house of story moving intimately through the harshness and graceful moments of Indigenous lives with humility and beauty. You will come out the other side of this book with a fuller heart.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Author, Islands of Decolonial Love

A Story Circle Network Finalist for the Sarton Women’s Book Award for Young Adult Fiction

Story Circle Network

A dreamblur of raw desire, heartbreak, and heartache. …The Stone Collection is literary and soul perfection.

Richard Van Camp, Author, The Lesser Blessed

?[Akiwenzie-Damm's] luminescent prose in this book dances "like jingle dress dancers," and is somehow still compressed to shining perfection

Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Generous, funny and dark, The Stone Collection doesn’t pull its emotional punches but it leavens its grim truths with bright humour and earthy lust. Akiwenzie-Damm’s writing shape-shifts and mesmerizes in short stories that tell us no matter how hard the journey, love can heal us all.

Eden Robinson, Author, Monkey Beach