Let the Drums be Your Heart brings together the work of more than forty aboriginal writers from all over Canada. concerned with family and days gone by, romance and adventure, tragedy and danger, these poems, short stories, articles and life stories ring with native pride and determination.

As editor Joel T. Maki points out in his introduction, storytellers and historians have always played a vital role in aboriginal communities, ensuring that indvidiual cultures, languages, legends and customs would survive. In this book, as in his earlier anthology Steal My Rage, Maki presents the work of writers from a variety of nations and backgrounds. Honouring past and present struggles of Native peoples everywhere, this anthology will serve to remind readers, as Maki says, of the proud warrior spirit that lies within.

Joel T. Maki was born on Manitoulin Island and grew up in Sudbury, Ontario. After living a good part of his life in the United States, he recently returned to Canada, where he is presently involved in Native literacy. He has produced a volume of poetry and completed his first novel, which he hopes to have published. His goals are to become a successful writer and, through his work at Na-Me-Res, to establish the need for a Native writing school in Ontario.

Joel Maki's profile page