Norma Dunning (born 1959) is an Inuk Canadian writer and assistant lecturer at the University of Alberta,[1] who won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award in 2018 for her short story collection Annie Muktuk and Other Stories.[2] In the same year, she won the Writers' Guild of Alberta's Howard O'Hagan Award for the short story "Elipsee", and was a shortlisted finalist for the City of Edmonton Book Award.[3] She published in 2020 a collection of poetry and stories entitled Eskimo Pie: A Poetics of Inuit Identity.
Of Inuit descent through her mother, Dunning was born in Quebec and raised in a variety of towns as her father was a member of the Canadian military.[4] She is based in Edmonton, Alberta, where she completed her doctoral degree with Indigenous Peoples Education at the University of Alberta in June 2019.[4]
Her story collection Tainna (pronounced Da-ee-nna) won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2021 Governor General's Awards,[5] and was shortlisted for the ReLit Award for short fiction in 2022.[6] Her second book Akia: The Other Side, is a collection of poetry that honors Inuit who lay in the past.
In 2023, her non-fiction book Kinauvit?: What’s Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter’s Search for Her Grandmother was shortlisted for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.[7]