writer | academic | musician
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg musician, writer and academic, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the boundaries between story and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity.
Working for two decades as an independent scholar using Nishnaabeg intellectual practices, Leanne has lectured and taught extensively at universities across Canada, the United States, Australia, Aotearoa and Europe and has over twenty years experience with Indigenous land based education. In 2026, the American Studies Association awarded her the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Prize for her body of work. She holds a PhD from the University of Manitoba and is a member of Alderville First Nation.
Leanne is the author of nine books, including Theory of Water which won the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-fiction. Her novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies which was short listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and the Dublin Literary Prize. Her collaboration with Robyn Maynard, Rehearsals for Living is a National Best Seller and was short listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction. Leanne is also a musician. Her academic work, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance won a Native American and Indigenous Studies Association book prize. Her latest record, Live Like the Sky was released to critical acclaim by You’ve Changed Records in 2025. Theory of Ice was named to the Polaris Prize short list, and she was the 2021 winner of the Prism Prize’s Willie Dunn Award. Leanne’s new novel, An Impossible Blue will be published by Knopf Canada in the summer of 2027.