Bawaajigan: Stories of Power

Bawaajigan an Anishinaabemowin word for dream or vision is a collection of powerful short fiction by Indigenous writers from across Turtle Island. Stories about the connection between the spirit world and everyday life and the rest of the cosmos; urban-fantasy and high-fantasy worlds; alternative histories, and alternative realities; brushes with the supernatural, the prophetic, the hallucinatory, and the surreal.

Among these themes we find stories ranging from the gritty, the gothic, the comedic, and the heart-wrenchingly tragic: a tale about the state of sleep-deprivation that conjures an uncertainty as to where dream ends and reality begins; the ominous tension of television static that conjures a certainty of something terrible about to happen; encounters with spirit guides, and spirit enemies; confrontations with ghosts haunting Residential School hallways, and ghosts looking on from the afterlife; and with concepts based on Ouija boards, bead-dreamers, Haudenosaune wizards, talking eagles, giant snakes, sacred white buffalo calves, spider’s silk, a burnt and blood-stained diary, longings for what could-have-been, worm-hole falls through reality, poppy-induced deliriums, imaginary friends, and knowledge revealed. Unifying everything: these are stories about the strength and power of dreams.

Contributors: Autumn Bernhardt, Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler, Wendy Bone, Delani Valin, Kavelina Torres, Gord Grisenthwaite, David Geary, Francine Cunningham, Karen Lee White, Sara Kathryn, Cathy Smith, J.S. Arnott, Lee Maracle.