English professor Dionne Brand received an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree June 13 from Wilfrid Laurier University.

An award-winning writer, she has penned 10 volumes of poetry, including Land to Light On, which won both a Governor General and a Trillium Book Award, and Thirsty which received a Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She has also contributed to 17 anthologies, written dozens of articles and essays and made four documentaries for the National Film Board.

Three years ago, she was appointed a City of Toronto poet laureate. Last July, she won the $65,000 Griffin Poetry Prize for her collection, Ossuaries.