Writer Feature: Shantell Powell
The Writer's Notebook
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The Writer's Notebook *
Shantell Powell lives in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, but originally comes from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canadaone. She is one of IHRAM’s treasured writers. In this interview, she shares her musings, inspiration, and honest thoughts on her experience with us as an author and activist.
Her latest publication with IHRAM Press is The Stolen Language of My Ancestors, a poem in IHRAM Quarterly: Indigenous Voices - Heart, Hope and Land.
Thank you for all you do, Shantell.
Now be honest, how has your experience been with IHRAM Press? How did you find us and why did you choose to publish with us?
I don't remember where I found out about IHRAM Press because I follow a lot of mailing lists and websites about submission opportunities. I was drawn toward it because I wanted to participate in an anthology of work by Indigenous writers espousing human rights. The process was very confusing. Initially, I was sent a rejection letter for my work, but a few months later, without even being asked if my poem was still available, I was sent a contract. Fortunately, the poem was still available. But when I emailed explaining how the poem had been rejected and I hadn't been queried about its current availability, no one responded. I'm really glad that I hadn't sent the poem off to another place which doesn't accept simultaneous submissions, because that would have reflected very poorly on me.
Would you recommend IHRAM Press to other writers/artists?
I don't know. The SNAFU with the rejection followed by a contract and the lack of communication makes me leery. That being said, the editorial process was good.
Share a couple of quotes from your written piece/s published in IHRAM Literary Magazine 2024!
“Don’t let my words grow stagnant in this water.”
Now for the fun questions! What compels you to pick up a pen or open your laptop to free-write? And what inspires/influences your writing, particularly when it comes to addressing human rights issues?
I’m a two-spirit, neurospicy, disabled Indigiqueer of Inuk/Mi’kmaw/white ancestry. Raised on the land and off the grid all over Canada in an apocalyptic Christian cult, I have a deep-seated love of the land and a love/hate relationship with the Bible. After breaking free of the cult, I went on to become a historian of the European witch trials and a Classics major. I continue to study history, natural science, fairy tales, and folklore to this day. I work hard at re-Indigenizing myself after growing up colonized. My background in Classics and Biblical knowledge, my interest in the occult and folklore, and my ever-increasing climate anxiety leads me to investigating these themes in my writing. My writing practice helps me process religious trauma as well as my fear of climate catastrophe. It lets me share my knowledge with others.
The human rights concerns addressed in the IHRAM literary magazine are often complex and challenging to navigate. How do you navigate the balance between highlighting these challenges and maintaining a sense of hope or optimism in your writing?
Disabled people are valuable and are worth fighting for. So we too must fight to protect our deteriorating climate and our damaged earth. We may not be able to achieve utopia, but we can practice harm reduction to aid our descendants.
How do you personally connect with our mission? Particularly on the power of art and literature to influence social change, and our values of beauty as a fundamental creative principle, sincerity, vulnerability, celebrating diversity, and opening doorways of engagement.
Art and literature are powerful forms of communication. Communication is part of community, and it is key to our survival and to the survival of all our relations, human or otherwise.
The IHRAM magazine aims to celebrate authors contending with their identities within the context of their environments. How does your environment influence your view of the world (your home country, city, and surrounding culture)?
I was raised on the land in a hunting/foraging/farming family, and as such, I feel a deeper understanding of nature than folks who grew up feeling removed from nature. When I see people cheering at unseasonably warm days, it feels to me like starving people cheering because they've lost weight. When I see people grateful for no rain on weekends when we've been in the midst of a drought, I am filled with unease. If we don't have a cold, snowy winter, and if we have hot, dry summers, that results in failed crops, droughts, and a proliferation of pests killing trees. I grew up in places with very little anthropogenic sound, and now I live in a large city next to a busy road. I find it hard to feel at ease when traffic and sirens are constant. It is not a good way to live.
In comparison, how does your intersectionality influence your view of the world (your personal beliefs, gender expression, religious affiliations, etc.)?
I have always been an outsider. I'm disabled, neurodivergent, postmenopausal, and nonbinary. I was born into an apocalyptic Christian cult, but have long since shed those beliefs. Though I am now agnostic and animistic, I remember what it is like to see the world through a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint. I am mixed Inuk/Mi'kmaw/white, and much of my childhood was spent with no fixed address living in a camper or travel trailer and wearing unfashionable hand-me-downs. My family was viewed as redneck trailer trash. My father is a survivor of the backport Newfoundland equivalent of Indian Day Schools and lied about his age to run away to become a Peace Keeper. He was nomadic and we moved frequently, which means I was never at a school for long, I had few friends, and I was not raised within community. Because there's no community which claims me, my Indigeneity is sometimes viewed with suspicion. This is a great source of anxiety for me as I've been targeted by pretendian hunters who think I am lying about my upbringing. Though there certainly are people who falsely claim Indigeneity, a lot of 60s scoop survivors, children of Residential School/Day School survivors, and other folks raised outside of community are being harassed, sometimes to the point of death. This is what colonialism has wrought.
Intersectionality recognizes the complications which occur when different spheres collide. There is no single cookie-cutter way to understand life.
Support Activist Writers
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Support Activist Writers *
Read and enjoy all of Shantell’s previously published work:
“Pony.” Zo Magazine 2025
"The Tupilaq." Fiction in Iridescence 2025
“Wolf Mother.” Fiction in Inner Worlds. 2024
“Angakkuq.” Poetry in On Spec. 2024
“The Yolk of the Moon.” Fiction in LSUA Flash Fiction Booklet and website. 2024
You can find Shantell on Mastodon, Bluesky, and DreamWidth @ShanMonster.
