Shannon Webb-Campbell is Canadian writer, poet and editor. She is descended from

Miꞌkmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Mi'kmaw'' or ''Mi'gmaw''; ; , and formerly Micmac) are an Indigenous group of people of the Northeastern Woodlands, native to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Bru ...

people from the

Qalipu First Nation The Qalipu First Nation (Phonetics, phon: /xa.li.bu/, alibu Mi'kmaq language, Mi'kmaq for 'caribou') is a Mi'kmaq band government based on the eastern Canadian island of Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland. The landless band was created by or ...

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...

Writing career

In December 2013 Webb-Campbell was chosen to be the 2014 Canadian Women in Literary Arts (CWILA) "critic in residence". As part of her residency, she published interviews and reviews in ''The National Post'', ''The Telegraph Journal'', ''The Coast'' and ''Plenitude Magazine.'' Her first book, ''Still No Word'', was published by Breakwater Books in 2015. The collection of poetry explores identity, wounding and healing. The publication of the book was part of the Egale Canada Out in Print Literary Award, which Webb-Campbell had won in 2014. The award provides "financial and publishing support to an emerging queer and/or trans-spectrum, female-identified writer in Canada."

Controversy surrounding ''Who Took My Sister?''

In 2018, Webb-Campbell published her second collection of poetry titled ''Who Took my Sister?'' focusing on themes of

missing and murdered Indigenous women Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women are instances of violence against Indigenous women in Canada and the United States, notably those in the First Nations in Canada and Native American communities, but also amongst other Indigenous peoples s ...

. The family of Loretta Saunders, one of the women whose murder Webb-Campbell described in a poem, spoke out against the book and revealed that the poet did not seek their permission prior to publication. It emerged that Webb-Campbell had not spoken to any of the families of those who were depicted in her book. In response Book*hug, her publisher, withdrew the book from sale and halted distribution. In addition, Book*hug donated revenue from the book to the Loretta Saunders Community Scholarship Fund. Webb-Campbell personally wrote letters of apology to each of the families and, in collaboration with Lee Maracle, reworked the book, eventually publishing it as ''I Am a Body of Land'' in 2019. The new book studies the relationship between individual and collective trauma, and bears little resemblance to the withdrawn work. Reviewing the book for '' Arc Poetry Magazine'', Kathy Mac describes the poet " rapplingwith the collapse of both her social life and her sense of self." She notes that there is a "deliberate awkwardness" reflecting the alienation felt by the poet. Reviewer T. Liem, writing in the ''Montreal Review of Books'', praised Webb-Campbell's use of the "energy of repetition to build layers of meaning." ''I Am a Body of Land'' was a finalist for the 2019 Quebec Writers' Federation A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry.

Works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Webb-Campbell, Shannon Living people Year of birth missing (living people) First Nations women writers 21st-century First Nations writers Qalipu First Nation people 21st-century Canadian women writers First Nations poets Canadian women poets Canadian LGBTQ poets Canadian literary critics LGBTQ First Nations people 21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people Poets from Newfoundland and Labrador