Sheryl Doherty

Sheryl Doherty was born in Saskatoon in the ‘70s and adopted at 10 months. She is Cree and Irish and is part of the Sixties Scoop, a generation of Indigenous children who were adopted out to non-Indigenous people for the purpose of assimilation. While growing up, she was denied her Cree heritage. However, when she started university, she began learning about Indigenous people’s histories across Canada, cultural and intergenerational trauma, and about the alarming numbers of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in North America. Sheryl finished her Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Education, and Master of Arts, then began her lifelong passion of teaching about Indigenous literature.

Finding Izzy is not about Sheryl, but Izzy’s journey could be similar to any Indigenous person raised without their Indigenous Ways of Being. Finding Izzy includes a sprinkle of Nehiyawewin and Nehiyaw teachings. Writing this novel was important to Sheryl because it highlights some of the ways that western and Indigenous cultures clash.

Finding Izzy

A teen wakes up in a hospital with no memory. There is nothing to indicate who she might be—no identification and no distinguishing marks on her body, not even a freckle. She is brought to a foster home where she wades through relationships all the while trying to figure out her identity. Her skin colour and features indicate she is Indigenous, possibly Cree. But how did she arrive alone and naked in a Vancouver metro station? As she begins to piece together the puzzle with the help of two new friends, she discovers she is no ordinary girl.

AVAILABLE NOW in eBook, paperback, and hardcover! Watch for the audiobook coming this spring!