June 21, 2021: Recipients for the fourth annual Indigenous Voices Awards (IVAs) were announced today, Indigenous Peoples Day. During an online celebration hosted by Tenille K. Campbell, $39,000 CAD was awarded across nine categories in recognition of exceptional emerging Indigenous writers working in English, French, and Indigenous languages.
“As Co-Chairs of the fourth annual celebrations of the Indigenous Voices Awards, we are thrilled to announce that more writers than ever submitted their work this year, including submissions from eighteen publishers. We are honoured to be able to read and promote the beautiful, complex, gripping, vital work by a new generation of Indigenous writers in lands claimed by Canada. At this moment, as we share the names of this year’s awards recipients, this celebration is meant to be an encouragement for all emerging Indigenous writers to keep writing. In this historical moment, your words are more necessary than ever.” — Dr. Deanna Reder (CreeMétis), and settler scholars Dr. Sophie McCall & Dr. Sarah Henzi, Co-chairs, Indigenous Voices Awards.
Watch the full broadcast here: https://youtu.be/vM9b8iNVQ6s.
The 2021 IVAs award recipients are bolded below:
Published Prose in English: Fiction
Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler, Ghost Lake (Kegedonce Press)
Jenn Ashton, People Like Frank (Tidewater Press)
Michelle Good, Five Little Indians (Harper Perennial)
Michael Hutchinson, The Case of the Missing Auntie (Second Story Press)
Katłįà, Land-Water-Sky / Ndè-Tı-Yat’a (Fernwood Publishing)
Published Prose in English: Creative Nonfiction and Life-Writing
Bevann Fox, Genocidal Love: A Life After Residential School (University of Regina Press)
Karen Pheasant-Neganigwane, Powwow: A Celebration through Song and Dance (Orca Book Publishers)
Michelle Porter, Approaching Fire (Breakwater Books)
Unpublished Prose in English:
Deanna M. Jacobson, “Hockey and Hot Chocolate”
Amanda Peters, “Waiting for the Long Night Moon”
Troy Sebastian, “The Mission”
Published Poetry in English:
Norma Dunning, Eskimo Pie: A Poetics of Inuit Identity (Bookland Press)
shalan joudry, Waking Ground (Gaspereau Press)
Tyler Pennock, Bones (Brick Books)
jaye simpson, It Was Never Going to Be Okay (Nightwood Editions)
Unpublished Poetry in English:
Brandi Bird, “Ode to Diabetes”
Erica Violet Lee, “A Manifesto for the Morning and Forever After”
Shaya MacDonald, “She Said to Me”
Samantha Martin-Bird, “the indian (adultery) act & other poems”
Published Prose in French:
Émilie Monnet, Okinum (Éditions Les Herbes Rouges)
Jocelyn Sioui, Mononk Jules (Éditions Hannenorak)
Published Poetry in French:
Shayne Michael, Fif et sauvage (Éditions Perce-Neige)
Félix Perkins, Boiteur des bois (Éditions Perce-Neige)
Published Graphic Novels, Comics, and Illustrated Books in any Language:
Lisa Boivin, I Will See You Again (HighWater Press)
Brianna Jonnie, with Nahanni Shingoose, illustrated by Neal Shannacappo, If I Go Missing (James Lorimer)
Tasha Spillett, illustrated by Natasha Donovan, From the Roots Up: Surviving the City Vol. 2 (HighWater Press)
Published Work in an Indigenous Language:
Zacharias Kunuk, illustrated by Megan Kyak-Monteith, The Shaman’s Apprentice: Inuktitut (Inhabit Media)
Congratulations to all the recipients and finalists!
