Rita Bouvier was born and grew up in Ile a la Crosse, Saskatchewan, on the Churchill River System. Although she currently resides in Saskatoon, she remains strongly connected to her roots in Northern Saskatchewan. Bouvier is an educator and a writer. She has published two collections of poetry with Thistledown Press, Blueberry Clouds (1999) and papîyâhtak (2004), and has been nominated for several Saskatchewan Book Awards. Bouvier’s poetry has been translated into Spanish and German, and her work has appeared in literary anthologies, musicals, and television productions. In 2008 the Gabriel Dumont Institute published the collaborative children’s book Better That Way with artists Sherry Farrell-Racette and Margaret Gardiner, based on the title poem from papîyâhtak. Bouvier lives in Saskatoon.