b'TRUTH-TELLERTELLING THEIR STORIESBy Rick GarrickOjibwe author and truth-teller Tanya Talaga uses her talent to tell the Indigenous stories that need to be toldT anya Talaga stresses the importance of followingTalaga, founder of Makwa Creative Inc. and award-winning author, ones dreams and persevering through years of studypublic speaker, producer, director, journalist and storyteller, says the and work. It was what helped the Seven Fallen Feathersstudents learned from each other how to write stories and how to author achieve her success as a renowned storyteller. work in a newsroom.I had this dream that I would one day be able to write books andMy first editor was Naomi Klein, says Talaga, whose mothers tell stories, and how I got there took a while, Talaga says, notingfamily is from Fort William First Nation and whose father was that she chose to study at the University of Torontos VictoriaPolish-Canadian. I had my pen, my notebook and my tape recorder, College after high school because many famous writers had studiedand we taught each other how to write leads, what was important in there. I fell into journalisma friend of mine was going to a news- the story. We discussed what to cover, what should be news, what paper meeting at our college, so I went with her. And I loved it; Ishouldnt be news, and then we produced the paper until very late at never left. I became the news editor of that paper and then the newsnight. Oftentimes we worked all night longwe had two editions of editor of the larger U of T student newspaper called The Varsity. The Varsity [per week].50Fall/Winter 2021'