NWT Arts

We regret to advise readers that Bren has passed away. Her profile remains in her memory.

Bren Kolson is a Metis poet and author born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories of Tso’Tine and Polish descent. Ms. Kolson, who has been writing since Grade Four, won the John Tetso Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature sponsored by Claire and David Molson of Montreal, Quebec at age fourteen for an eight stanza, thirty-two line, poem. Several poems were published in the local newspaper The News of the North at age fifteen. In 1980 as a journalist working with the Native Press, Ms. Kolson won the Louis St. Laurent Fellowship – a legal journalism scholarship - given to two practicing journalists in Canada yearly and sponsored by the Canadian Bar Association of Canada. Ms. Kolson audited the law courses of her choice at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Several of Ms. Kolson’s poems were published in Writing The Circle, A Western Canadian Native Women’s Anthology in 1990. Ms. Kolson received a Double High Honors in English and Native Studies in 1992 at the University of Saskatchewan where she also taught Native Literature. She won the Hannon Travel Scholarship sponsored by the University of Saskatchewan’s English department in 1992. Ms. Kolson is one of seven Canadian Aboriginal writers from 150 applicants chosen for the first Aboriginal Emerging Writer’s Residency at Banff, Alberta sponsored by Canada Council for the Arts, the En’owkin Center and the Banff Center for the Arts in 2005. Bren writes short stories, poetry, prose, books, essays and read a set of poems at the League of Canadian Poets Spring Fest in Victoria, British Columbia in 2005. In 2005-2006 Bren was short-listed to one of thirty Canadian writers from 1,074 applicants who submitted in the short story category for the national CBC Literary Awards. She read poetry and short stories at the NorthWords Writers Festival in Yellowknife, N.W.T in 2006 and 2008 where she was invited to present a workshop on The History of Aboriginal Literature in Canada and the United States. In 2007 Ms. Kolson was chosen to attend the Quesnel River Mother’s Journey Retreat in British Columbia with eleven Metis women including Maria Campbell (Halfbreed). She was chosen to attend the CBC StageNorth Playwright’s Workshop in Yellowknife, NT in October 2007. In December 2009 Ms. Kolson’s first book was published and released by Eschia Books and Lone Pine Publishers in Edmonton, Alberta. In March 2010 Ms. Kolson was chosen for the inaugural Northwords Writers Festival Prize for excellence in literary writing for her book Myth of the Barrens. Her works have recently been featured in anthologies.