Discover Press

Amanda Peters is a Mi'kmaq writer hailing from Falmouth, Nova Scotia. Her first novel, The Berry Pickers, achieved significant acclaim, earning the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the 2023 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the 2024 Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence, and the 2024 Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction. Peters, who is of mixed Mi'kmaq and European heritage, was raised in Nova Scotia as part of the Glooscap First Nation. Her earlier writing career included nominations and wins for her short stories in Indigenous Voices Awards. Her debut short story collection, Waiting for the Long Night Moon, was published in August 2024.

The Berry Pickers, published in early 2023, explores the story of a young Mi'kmaw girl who disappears in Maine. The novel delves into the enduring impact of this event on her birth family and on the girl herself, who is raised by a white family unaware of her true heritage. This debut novel also received a nomination for the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the 2024 Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the 2024 Thomas Head Raddall Award, and the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for Fiction.