Paula Sevestre is a Mi’kmaw author from Membertou First Nation in Nova Scotia whose writing explores hidden truths, human behaviour, spirituality, and the spaces between what is seen and what is understood.
Her path to fiction began with her own story.
Paula’s first three books grew from lived experience and her exploration of intergenerational trauma, healing, resilience, and the complicated journey of learning to trust herself. Writing became a way of examining experiences that were not always easy to understand—or initially easy to tell.
With Lex Tocara: Shadow of the Healer, Paula moves from nonfiction into psychological suspense. While the novel is a work of fiction, the questions that have long interested her remain: Why do we trust the people we trust? What happens when knowledge or influence is misused? How do we recognize what feels wrong before we can explain why? And what might exist beyond the things we can readily see or understand?
These questions find a new home in the world of Lex Tocara™, where suspense, human behaviour, Indigenous perspectives, spirituality, and the unexplained intersect.
Beyond the Page
Paula’s professional life has also been shaped by relationship-building, storytelling, and bringing different ways of understanding together.
For more than 25 years, she has worked with Indigenous organizations at local, regional, and national levels in areas including partnership development, governance, strategic planning, communications, and organizational leadership.
Today, Paula works at the intersection of Indigenous engagement, health research, and critical care. As Indigenous Engagement Program Lead with the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group, she conceived and leads Voices in Care, a national initiative working to strengthen meaningful Indigenous inclusion in critical care research. She also developed and leads Indigenous curriculum for the LifTING Health Research Training Platform, helping researchers, clinicians, trainees, and patient partners develop more respectful and relational approaches to Indigenous engagement.
Paula holds a Graduate Certificate in Public Relations, is a member in good standing of The Writers’ Union of Canada, and received the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association’s Linda Maloney Award for Entrepreneurship in 2023.
Originally from Unama’ki (Cape Breton), Nova Scotia, Paula now lives on Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario with her husband, Mark. Together, they have twin adult sons, Brad and Nate.
Shadow of the Healer is her debut novel and the first book in the four-book Lex Tocara™ psychological suspense series.