A Steady Brightness of Being is a moving collection of letters by celebrated Indigenous Voices from across Turtle Island (North America) with titles like “Dear Relative,” “Letter to Clouds,” and “Dreaming, Listening, Belonging.”
At the heart of this compilation of truths, wisdom and love is the idea that “sharing stories counteracts the erasure of Indigenous life and history” (Sara Sinclair, TEDx College Park, 2021), inspired by the editors’ maternal grandmother who survived the Holocaust and healed by telling her stories and their paternal grandfather, a residential school survivor who never talked about it and “carried lifelong shame not just about his trauma but about his identity” (p.2).
Structured like a medicine bundle, these healing letters are broken into four sections: Tobacco, Cedar, Sweetgrass and Sage. Editor Stephanie Sinclair writes “this anthology is an entry point to connections” (p.3) and I admit, I made dozens while reading. Themes like the value of children and the power of ancestors sit side by side with letters about culture erasure, Canadian history from an Indigenous perspective, the importance of land and water protection, and messages of love and hope for future generations.
Editor Stephanie Sinclair writes “this anthology is an entry point to connections” (p.3) and I admit, I made dozens while reading.
As I began the first section, I worried I was not the intended audience for this book and therefore, not the best reader to be writing a review. Understandably, the letters are filled with anger, frustration, pain, but as I allowed the words and ideas to settle in, I realized there is an equal amount of hope, joy, pride – the fiercest forms of resistance to exist. In the first letter, To Indians Now and Forever Surviving, Terese Marie Mailhot writes the empowering titular concept : “I believe we are a steady brightness of being […] Native people carry power. […] All of our teachings will tell you we are one with the stars. That we come from light.”
I also recognized it was my place as a settler relative to simply observe and reflect on all that this anthology offered me as a reader. With letters entitled “Dear Canada,” and “Dear Allies,” discovering themes like environmental stewardship, genocide and residential schooling, language loss, and hopes for future generations, there is undoubtedly something here for me to learn, unlearn, to listen to and consider. In the letter “Remember We Are Warriors”, Pamela Palmater writes of her “friends, allies, and supporters who have taken up the call for action on justice for Indigenous peoples. Our allies make mistakes and have much learning to do, but their commitment to hold themselves to account and to follow our lead is exactly what our settlers’ relatives are supposed to do.” (p. 135)
In the letter “Remember We Are Warriors”, Pamela Palmater writes of her “friends, allies, and supporters who have taken up the call for action on justice for Indigenous peoples. Our allies make mistakes and have much learning to do, but their commitment to hold themselves to account and to follow our lead is exactly what our settlers’ relatives are supposed to do.” (p. 135)
If I’ve learned anything from the Indigenous educators and knowledge keepers I’ve worked with and from the Indigenous authors I’ve read, it is that it remains my responsibility as a settler relative to educate myself on Indigenous history, culture and worldviews. To listen to Indigenous peoples and learn their histories, their science, their artistry, their ways of governing and being, to believe them, and then step back and earn the opportunity to engage with them, shoulder to shoulder when called to do so, is the cause. In the letter “Dear Allies”, Jennifer Grenz writes: “Your allyship does not mean we are on this journey of reconciliation together. […] Yours, one of learning the truth. Mine of living it. Yours, one of processing that truth. Mine, having to listen to your processing. Yours, acknowledging systemic harms. Mine, waiting for meaningful change.” (p.121)
So, who is this book for? It is for everyone. It is for us all. Its messages are for both Indigenous readers looking for hope, belonging, acknowledgement and promise, and for Settler readers looking to listen and learn, even unlearn, to build knowledge and embrace other perspectives. In this way, we can move into repaired relationships with our Indigenous family members, friends, colleagues and community, which is really the first step of many towards truthful reconciliation.
“We can and do change our opinions. In every experience, there is something new to learn, which can and does change our actions towards others. That is not hypocrisy, that is how we learn and grow as L’nuk – as the people.” (Pamela Palmater, p.136)
Sara Sinclair is an oral historian of Cree-Ojibwa and mixed settler descent. Sara teaches in the Oral History Master of Arts Program at Columbia University. She is Project Director of the Aryeh Neier Oral History Project at Columbia Center for Oral History Research [CCOHR]. Sara recently edited the memoir of former Canadian Senator and Chief Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Murray Sinclair (McClelland & Stewart 2024). With Stephanie Sinclair she is co-editing two anthologies of Indigenous letters, for Penguin/Random House Canada. She is the editor of How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America (2020, Voice of Witness/Haymarket Books). She has contributed to the Columbia Center for Oral History Research’s Covid-19 Oral History, Narrative and Memory Archive, Obama Presidency Oral History, and Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project. With Peter Bearman and Mary Marshall Clark, Sinclair edited Robert Rauschenberg: An Oral History (2019, Columbia University Press). Sara’s current and previous clients include the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of the City of New York and New York City Department of Environmental Protection. She has been an invited speaker at Berkeley College, Bard College, Haverford College, Brooklyn College, Cooper Union & Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour (UPPA), France among others. Sara holds an M.A. in Oral History from Columbia University.
Stephanie Sinclair is Publisher of McClelland & Stewart, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada. She is a Cree, Ojibwe, and German/Jewish settler. She is a fierce advocate and activist, serving as a mentor and curator, and organizing publishing events to challenge colonial practices in publishing and to advance the work of reconciliation. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with her two children.
Publisher: Penguin Canada (August 26, 2025)
Hardcover 6″ x 8″ | 192 pages
ISBN: 9780735250369
Author. Educator. Theatre Maker. Producer. Typewriter Enthusiast. Gatherer of creative folk.
Aren A. Morris is a Halifax-based arts educator and novelist.
She has been writing, directing, facilitating, and producing student theatre in education for two decades and now works with Halifax Regional Arts. She loves finding ways to incorporate the Performing Arts into Curriculum Delivery.
Aren’s debut, We Happy Few, is a historical fiction novel taking place in Halifax, NS at the end of the Second World War and was released in May 2022. She is now editing and revising her sophomore novel (another historical fiction set in NS) and recently co-hosted the third installment of The Fantastic Grown Up Book Fair in Mahone Bay.
Her other endeavours include women’s creativity retreats, writing and producing youth theatre and dance shows, and multidisciplinary collaborations with local artists, dancers and writers.
She is one half of the short lived and now defunct Black Box Publishing House, which is now evolving to become Black Box Creative Development Agency, a container large enough to hold and promote all of Aren’s creative interests and pursuits.
