Photo by Anneka Bunnag
Chyana Marie Sage is a Cree and Métis writer from Canada living in NYC.
I am nothing more and nothing less than a woman who dives into all aspects of life, ebbing and flowing with the painful, the beautiful, the gut-wrenching, and heart-captivating moments that find us.
There is beauty and lessons in all of it, and I welcome it with open arms.
My love for adventure and life led me to move from Northern Alberta all the way to New York City—where I completed my MFA at Columbia.
I once had a dream where I was lost in the woods. Terrified that I would never make it home, the raven appeared—hovering in front of me, connected as if we were one, the raven guided me home.
My personal essay "Soar" won first place in the Edna Staebler Essay Contest and is available in issue 160 of The New Quarterly. As an Indigenous woman and descendant of residential school survivors, writing about and overcoming intergenerational trauma is the motif of my life. I weave together cultural artifacts as modes of healing throughout my work, celebrating the joys of my Cree culture. My memoir is forthcoming with House of Anansi, January 2025.
I am passionate about amplifying underrepresented voices and served as the Director of the Incarcerated Writers Initiative at Columbia.
In addition to all my creative writing workshops and seminars at Columbia, I also took a few screenwriting courses — falling in love with that medium of storytelling. I wrote a fully completed TV pilot that is a drama/horror merging my experiences growing up listening to stories of Cree spirits and the legacies of Sixties Scoops that run in my family.
I teach at Columbia University as an Adjunct Assistant Professor, but am also currently seeking freelance writing opportunities, other teaching opportunities, and positions in writers rooms, ideally Indigenous creative teams!