Heather Robertson was born in Winnipeg, Canada on March 19, 1942. She was a reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press in the 1960s and helped pave the way for women journalists to leave the "women's pages." Her first book, Reservations Are for Indians was published in 1970. She won the Books in Canada First Novel Award for Willie: A Romance and received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the National Magazine Awards Foundation in 2011. She also co-founded The Writers' Union of Canada. She died from cancer on March 19, 2014 at the age of 72.