Michelle Good

Michelle Good is a Cree writer, poet, and lawyer from Canada, most noted for her debut novel Five Little Indians. She is a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. Good has an MFA and a law degree from the University of British Columbia and, as a lawyer, advocated for residential-school survivors.

She lives in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan.

Early life and education

Good is a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation. She was impacted by the Sixties Scoop and spent time in the foster care system. Her great-grandmother participated in the 1885 uprising at Frog Lake and her great-grandmother's uncle was Chief Big Bear. Good graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing in 2014. The first draft of her debut novel, Five Little Indians, was her graduate thesis project. She began to practice law in her 40s, sharing the histories of residential schools in courtrooms. Good received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Simon Fraser University on October 7, 2022.

Career

Five Little Indians is a story about five British Columbia residential-school survivors. Although the novel itself is fiction, some of the episodes were based on real experiences of her mother and grandmother, who were both survivors of Canada's residential school system. The book was optioned for adaptation in 2021 as a limited television series by producer Martin Katz.^{[needs update]} In 2022, it won the Canada Reads competition, having been championed by Christian Allaire.

Truth Telling, her second book, is a collection of essays on historical and modern experiences of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Published on May 30, 2023, it was a finalist for the Balsillie Prize for Public Policy and an Indigenous Voices Award.

Good was named a Member of the Order of Canada on December 31, 2025.

Awards and nominations

Bibliography

References