Armand Garnet Ruffo’s bio

Armand Garnet Ruffo

Photo: Pearl Pirie

ARMAND GARNET RUFFO draws on his Ojibway heritage for his writing. He is the author of poetry, fiction, essays and dramatic scripts. He has published five collections of poetry, including Grey Owl: the Mystery of Archie Belaney and At Geronimo’s Grave, and most recently The Thunderbird Poems (2015). His creative biography of the acclaimed Ojibway painter Norval Morrisseau, Man Changing Into Thunderbird, was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award in 2015.

Ruffo has worked in film and wrote and directed a feature film production of his CBC award winning play, A Windigo Tale (2010), winner of best picture at The Dreamspeaker’s Film Festival in Edmonton, and at the 35th American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco. Ruffo’s writing has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Making A Difference: Canadian Multicultural Literatures in English (Oxford, 2007) and The Echoing Years: An Anthology of Poetry and Translation from Canada and Ireland (Blackwell, 2008), Regreen: New Canadian Ecological Poetry (2009), West Coast Line (2009), The Malahat Review (2013), Event (2014), and Poetry Ireland Review (2014). He currently teaches in the Department of English at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.