Melinda Burns is a status member of the Lower Mohawk First Nation. Her poems have been published in the Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly and One Art. She has also published stories and essays in Grain, Fiddlehead, the Toronto Star, Native Skin, and the New Quarterly. Her essay, Legacy, about the inter-generational impact of her mother’s experience at the Mohawk Institute, was a finalist for the Prism International 2023 Creative Non-Fiction prize. She lives in Guelph, Ontario.