User:Holly Cabler/Tihemme Gagnon

Tihemme Gagnon Tihemme Gagnon is the penname for Tanya-Michelle Gagnon (nee Botting), born on November 19, 1970 to legal scholar and author Gary Botting and anthropologist and university professor Heather Botting. A Metis Canadian screenwriter, story editor and television producer, Gagnon is one of three partners at the Edmonton, Alberta-based Aboriginal-majority owned production company Sweetgrass and Sage, Inc. with Pati Olson and Jamie Bourque. Gagnon's documentary credits include writer and producer of Our Home & Native Land: Canada's First Nations Heroines, which was awarded a Remi Award at the Houston Film Festival in 2010, and writer and producer of the documentary series Chaos & Courage. Both projects aired on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Of Assiniboine-Sioux descent through her mother's line, Gagnon is a member of the South Island Metis Nation of Victoria, British Columbia. In her capacity as an Aboriginal filmmaker, Gagnon was one of the original members of the Alliance of Aboriginal Media Producers (AAMP), established in 2011 and restructured in 2013 as the not-for-profit society Alliance of Aboriginal Media Professionals. An organization mandated to ensure equitable and fair representation and negotiation for Aboriginal film, television and new media professionals across Canada, AAMP entered into negotiations for a previously non-existent Terms of Trade Agreement with Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) in 2013, as the broadcaster entered into its own negotiations for licence renewal with the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission.

In 1991, Gagnon enlisted in the Canadian Forces Reserve Corps, serving with 11th Medical Company in Victoria, B.C. until 1992, at which time she transferred to the 5 Fd Artillery Regiment. In 1992, serving as Gnr T M Botting, Gagnon received Top Candidate Award as the only female student to complete her Artillery Communications course. She was voluntarily discharged from the military in 1994.

In 1993, she married Richard Gagnon, and from 1994 to 1997, while raising two young daughters, held various positions as a legal secretary and legal assistant at various Victoria law firms. In 1998, the family relocated to New Westminster, where Gagnon completed Sprott Shaw College's Medical Assistance Program, graduating as valedictorian with an overall average of 98%. She subsequently worked as a medical transcriptionist for Burnaby Psychiatric Services, a position she left in the wake of her father's heart attack on her 28th birthday. Between 1999 and 2004, Gagnon retreated from the workplace to focus on raising the couple's four young children.

In 2004, after writing her first two feature scripts, one of which was shortlisted at the 2001 Praxis Centre for Screenwriters' annual screenplay competition, Gagnon enrolled in Vancouver Film School's Writing for Film, Television and New Media Program. She graduated in 2005. In 2006, she secured a story editing internship at the Praxis Centre for Screenwriters, and was subsequently contracted as an adjudicator of Praxis' 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010 annual screenwriting competitions. In 2006, she was selected to participate as an emerging screenwriter in the National Screen Institute of Canada (NSI)'s DiverseTV Program, followed in 2008 with a producer internship through the NSI's StoryTellers Program.

Gagnon won Gold in the Television Pilot Script category at the 2010 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards with her television pilot script The Last Gate, which also garnered her an Award of Excellence in Screenwriting at the 2011 Canada Film Festival. The series was subsequently optioned twice, but despite its achievements, producers were unable to secure a development or production deal with any of the Canadian broadcasters, and the project was eventually dropped. In 2010, Gagnon was contracted by Edmonton-based Mosaic Entertainment to write the feature White Mask, which was selected for workshop through Telefilm Canada's Featuring Aboriginal Stories Program (FASP) development initiative in 2012. Her short film Amy's End, which she wrote and produced, was awarded Best Short Film at the 2010 International ThrillSpy Film Festival.

Gagnon has taught screenwriting at various post-secondary institutions throughout Vancouver's Lower Mainland, including Vancouver Film School's Writing for Film and Television Department (2009 - 2013), Vancouver Community College (2011-2013) and Capilano University's Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaker's Program (2011 -2012).

Gagnon is the editor of Streaking! The Collected Poems of Gary Botting (2013), for which she also authored the foreword.

In 2013, Tihemme and Richard Gagnon divorced. Tihemme Gagnon continues to live with her children near Hope, BC.