Seventhblade nominated for the 2026 Evergreen Award!
I’m so excited to share that Seventhblade is amongst the 2026 Evergreen Nominees for the Ontario Library Association’s (OLA) Forest of Reading program!
The 2026 nominees for the Evergreen Award are: – All the Parts We Exile: A Memoir by Roza Nozari (Knopf Canada) – Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe (House of Anansi Press) – Fallosophy: My Trip through Life with MS by Ardra Shephard (Douglas & McIntyre) – Horsefly by Mireille Gagné (Coach House Books) – It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished: A Memoir of My Body by Kate Gies (Scribner Canada) – Seventhblade by Tonia Laird (ECW Press) – The Tiger and the Cosmonaut by Eddy Boudel Tan (Viking Canada) – Waiting for the Long Night Moon by Amanda Peters (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.) – What I Know About You by Éric Chacour (Coach House Books) – Where the Jasmine Blooms by Zeina Sleiman (Roseway Publishing)
Learn more about the Forest of Reading here: https://forestofreading.com/ Follow the Forest of Reading on Instagram @forestofreadingprogram
THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!
World English rights to tonia laird’s trilogy: BLACK DOG, BLACK DOG REIGN, and BLACK DOG RIOT sold to senior editor, katherena vermette, and children’s editor, Yashaswi Kesanakurthy, at Simon & Schuster Canada by Marilyn Biderman and Amanda Orozco! First book set to be released fall 2026!
Reviews for Seventhblade!
Now Available!
Set in a fragmented, fascinating world of dangerous magics and cryptic gods, and loaded with complex characters and intricately staged action, Seventhblade is a masterful new fantasy adventure from a bright, emerging Indigenous voice. For readers of N.K. Jemisin and Rebecca Roanhorse, a fast-paced, anti-colonial action-adventure fantasy that explores twisted power dynamics and the effects of settler colonialism.
I am so excited to share that I am working on a supernatural, climate-dystopian YA (young adult) trilogy set in the Canadian prairies! Rights to BLACK DOG, BLACK DOG REIGN, and BLACK DOG RIOT were sold to sold to senior editor katherena vermette and children’s editor Yashaswi Kesanakurthy at Simon & Schuster Canada by myContinue reading “The Official Announcement!”
In Seventhblade, the Ibinnashae (children of Ibinnas and non-Ibinnas) use Northern Michif as their heritage language. I was lucky enough to have translation help from Vince Ahenakew, an educator and language keeper from Île-à-la-Crosse, which one of the main communities that speak this dialect. Vince kindly fixed my attempts at translating dialogue as I amContinue reading “Northern Michif and Seventhblade”
The Convenient Lie That Caused the Real Destruction of Thriving Indigenous Farm Communities In Seventhblade, I’ve used some historical (and contemporary) acts of forced assimilation, segregation, and genocide against Turtle Island Indigenous communities and individuals as a basis for my worldbuilding concerning the Ecrelian colonization of the Indigenous Ibinnas, Ibinnashae, and Iqounicha of Kaspine. OneContinue reading “Seventhblade: Peasant Farming and Social Darwinism”
So in the reviews for Seventhblade, I’ve seen a few mention they were really hoping for a map. Unfortunately the illustrator was still working hard on the maps when the ARC went out, so they weren’t included. However, that means the finished book has two glorious maps for readers to reference at their leisure, butContinue reading “The Maps of Seventhblade”
tonia laird 