Cree-Métis scholar Dr. Deanna Reder did not study Indigenous literatures as an undergraduate. At the time such courses did not exist at her university. Propelled by this lack, she began to read outside of the conventional canon, with a keen eye on texts written by Cree or Métis authors. By the time she began her doctoral work in 2001, the field began to shift and a generation of 21st Century Indigenous writers began to be published. However, she continued to be drawn to texts by Indigenous authors that were written in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that were seemingly forgotten.