Dawn Dumont is a Plains Cree comedian and actor born and raised in Saskatchewan, Canada. She says of her reservation, the Okanese First Nation, that it is “quite possibly the smallest reservation in the world but what it doesn’t have in terms of land area, the people make up for in sheer head size”. Dawn has made people laugh at comedy clubs across North American, including New York’s Comic Strip, the New York Comedy Club, and the Improv. She began her comedy career in Toronto on stages such as Yuk Yuk’s and the Laugh Resort. Dawn is currently a comedy writer for CBC Radio and the Edmonton Journal, and is a Story Editor for By the Rapids, an animation comedy series on APTN.
Her writing has been published in the anthologies Native Women in the Arts andGatherings, as well as in Rampage Literary Journal. Her personal essay “Transformations” was published by Toronto’s Now Magazine. Most recently her play, Nicimis (Little Brother) was workshopped at Native Earth’s Performing Arts Weesageechak Begins to Dance Festival in Toronto, with artistic director Alanis King. Dumont lives in Saskatoon.
Source: https://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/Authors/Dawn_Dumont/index.cfm
Books & Awards
Nobody Cries at Bingo, 2011
In Nobody Cries At Bingo, the narrator, Dawn, invites the reader to witness first hand Dumont family life on the Okanese First Nation. Beyond the sterotypes and clichés of Rez dogs, drinking, and bingos, the story of a girl who loved to read begins to unfold. It is her hopes, dreams, and indomitable humour that lay bear the beauty and love within her family. It is her unerring eye that reveals the great bond of family expressed in the actions and affections of her sisters, aunties, uncles, brothers, cousins, nieces, nephews, and ultimately her ancestors.
It’s all here — life on the Rez in rich technicolour — as Dawn emerges from home life, through school life, and into the promise of a great future. Nobody Cries At Bingoembraces cultural differences and does it with the great traditional medicine of laughter.
- Shortlisted for the 2013-14 First Nation Communities READ Award
- Shortlisted for the 2012 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Award
- Shortlisted for the 2012 Alberta Readers Choice Award
- Chosen for inclusion in the Best Books for Kids and Teens 2012 edition (starred selection)
Rose’s Run, 2014
Rose Okanese, a single mother with two kids, has been pushed into a corner by Rez citizens to claim some self-respect, and decides that the fastest way to do that is to run the reserve’s annual marathon. Though Rose hasn’t run in twenty years, smokes, and initially has little motivation, she announces her intention to run the race. One quality Rose doesn’t lack is spontaneity which sometimes clashes with her iron will and, though she has initial regrets about opening her mouth, her life begins to dictate that she must follow through. But as fate will have it, one rather huge unforeseen outcome of her decision is that she will have to do battle with an old inadvertently conjured demon that feeds off the strength of women and can have them do her bidding. In no time the Rez is in an uproar.
Rose discovers, that the old demon has been unintentionally called forth by her teen daughter, Sarah, which complicates Rose’s life just a little more. The spirit woman creates a reign of fear and havoc by appearing to people on the reserve and freaking them out, all of which leads to incidents of extreme humour and plot-twisting bemusement, liberally sprinkled with some jittery acts of valour. With a cast of unusual and unfamiliar characters, Dumont interweaves a tale of motherly love, friendship, lustful longing, wîhtikow lore, and Rez humour, and keeps the hoopla going until the race is done.
Will Rose send the demon back to where it came from before the spirit claims her teen daughter? Will she get back together with her philandering, rock musician husband before her girls grow up? More importantly, will she get this all done before her big, face-saving race with Dahlia Ingram, a woman whom God has designed for one purpose: to run long distances at high speeds with effortless grace?
- Winner of the 2015 Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction
- Shortlisted: SBA Book of the Year, Aboriginal Peoples’ Writing, and City of Saskatoon Award
- Shortlisted for 2015-16 First Nation Communities Read Award
Source: https://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/Authors/Dawn_Dumont/index.cfm
