Lisa Bird-Wilson Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Lisa Bird-Wilson is a Saskatchewan writer with Métis and Cree roots. Her writing has been published in various newspapers, anthologies, and literary magazines in Canada.

Bird-Wilson wrote her short story collection Just Pretending and released it as her debut publication in 2013 from Coteau books. She has won four Saskatchewan Book Awards, from the 2014 Book of the Year to making the shortlist for the Danuta Gleed Award, and was the selection for the One Book, One Province selection in 2019.

Lisa Bird-Wilson also came out with a poetry collection in 2016 from Nightwood Editions titled The Red Files. It was inspired by archival source as well as family and touches on the residential school system’s legacy and how families were fragmented while delving into their histories.

Lisa Bird-Wilson also wrote the fictional book Probably Ruby, which came out in 2021 and was published internationally. It was shortlisted for the First Novel Award on Amazon, a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, and received two Saskatchewan Book Awards, which also included Book of the Year. The novel was published by Doubleday in Canada and by Hogarth/Random House in the States.

Lisa Bird-Wilson has also served as the prose editor for Grain magazine. She has also been a founding member of the SAWCI, the Saskatchewan Anskohk Writers Circle Inc, as well as a chair for the group. The author was given the Carol Shields Prize Foundation Residency in March 2024 at the Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver.

The artist resides in Saskatoon. She is the CEO to the Gabriel Dumont Institute, which the first post-secondary education and cultural institute for the Métis in Canada. She was adopted as a child and survived the Sixties scoop, an experience in her life that is much-included in the writing.

The author has also released nonfiction books and poetry. She is also the founding president of the Saskatchewan Aboriginal Literacy Network.

The author received the Book of the Year award from the University of Regina for her book Just Pretending in 2014. She also would go on to get the SaskPower Fiction Award. For the same book, she won the Rasmussen, Rasmussen and Charowsky Aboriginal Peoples’ Writing Award and the First Nations University of Canada Aboriginal Peoples’ Publishing Award. She received the YWCA Women of Distinction Award in 2014 as well in the category of arts, culture, or heritage.

Bird-Wilson also received the John Hodgin’s Founder Award in 2017 for “Counselling”, a short story. In 2018, the author received a RBC Emerging Artist Award from the Saskatchewan Arts Board. In 2019, she received the Silver Medal for a column from the National Magazine Awards for her column “Clowns, Cake, Canoes: This is Canada?”. In 2022, she made the short list for the First Novel Award from Amazon for Probably Ruby, and was a finalist for the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.

Just Pretending is a collection of short stories from Lisa Bird-Wilson that came out in 2013. If you love a book that is full of a unique voice or are looking for something interesting and new to read, this is it! One of the most unique voices in Canada brings readers a book that explores many complex themes, from loss to Aboriginal adoption, identity, belonging and not belonging, abandonment, insecurity, and regret.

This book focuses on different stories and different characters. A dad that is a total deadbeat has been gone from his daughter for twenty-two years and finally is reaching out to emotionally reconnect. A poet who is known for being selfish has been scarred by the tragedies of his upbringing and the effects still carry on, making him distant from both his spouse and his children. A man who smokes pot in middle age goes on a quest to find meaning when he comes up against mortality. A girl of just fourteen years old is having a tough time coming to terms with the fact that she feels abandoned.

The collection’s characters are fragile, not that likable, but usually can be sympathized with or identified. Taken at the heart of the stories are the ideas of belonging and identity, as well as the complicated relationships that can exist between parents and children, those whoa re real and those who are pretending.

Probably Ruby is a fictional book from Lisa Bird-Wilson. It was released in 2021 by DoubleDay Canada.

This novel centers around the life of an Indigenous woman who was adopted when she was young to white parents. On this novel that focuses on history, race, and family, a woman goes searching for her identity in the debut fictional story from this author.

This is the tale of a young woman that is out to find herself in most senses of the world. When Ruby is first encountered, she is a woman of the Métis somewhere in her thirties. Although things should be going well, everything is going into chaos in her life.

She wants to get involved with her counselor while at the same time bringing an older relationship back to life that will only make things more difficult. Ruby’s story is also more difficult than she can imagine.

When Ruby was a baby, she was given up for adoption. That is how she came into the lives of a white couple that although they care for her deeply will never understand that much of her heritage as an Indigenous woman.

This then becomes the mystery that is taking over Ruby’s life, trying to figure out who her people are while trying to figure out and get back what is missing.

This story covers different times as well as points of view, and eventually we see the people that connect to Ruby. This includes her grandparents, her birth parents, her adoptive parents, the partners that she has been involved with romantically, more relatives, and her own children. Put all together, this massive cast of characters put together many stories that add meaning to Ruby’s story and help to inform the reader on her life. This is a great work of Indigenous fiction that you simply have to check out for yourself!