Canada Reads winner Joshua Whitehead among finalists for 2023 Indigenous Voices Awards

Joshua Whitehead is among the 32 writers shortlisted for the sixth annual Indigenous Voices Awards. 

Whitehead is nominated in the published prose in English category for his personal essay collection Making Love with the Land, which explores Indigeneity, queerness and identity. 

Whitehead is an Oji-nêhiyaw, two-spirit writer, poet and Indigiqueer scholar from Peguis First Nation. He is also the author of the Canada Reads 2021-winning novel Jonny Appleseed and the poetry collection full-metal indigiqueer. His next book, Indigiqueerness: A Conversation about Storytelling, is a dialogue with writer Angie Abdou and will be published later in 2023. 

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 Anishinaabe writer Cody Caetano is nominated in the same category for his memoir Half-Bads in White Regalia. The story is about his tumultuous childhood and breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma, and was on the Canada Reads 2023 longlist. 

He has also published a short collection of poetry, Pleasure Dome Poems and his work has appeared in publications such as Prism International and the Hart House Review.

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Nêhiyaw writer Emily Riddle is nominated in the published poetry in English category for her debut collection The Big Melt, which examines what it means to repair kinship, contend with fraught history, go home and contemplate prairie ndn utopia in the era of late capitalism and climate change. An excerpt from the book was shortlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize.

Riddle is not the only past CBC Literary Prizes finalist to be shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices awards this year. Dene writer Kerissa Dickie is a finalist in the unpublished prose in English category for her story Seh Woo, My Teeth. Dickie was a finalist for the 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

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Established in 2017, the annual Indigenous Voices Awards honour the sovereignty of Indigenous creative voices, and recognize work by emerging Indigenous writers in Canada across eight categories in English, French and Indigenous languages.

"Over the past six years, we have elevated and championed over 100 emerging Indigenous writers through the IVAs," said co-chairs Deanna Reder and Sophie McCall of Simon Fraser University. 

This year, an anthology of over 50 selected works from the first five years of the Indigenous Voices Awards will be published by McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada. The anthology will be co-edited by Jordan Abel, Carleigh Baker and Madeleine Reddon.

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This year's winners will receive a total of $34,000.

Check out the complete shortlists for the 2023 Indigenous Voices Awards below.

Published prose in English:

• Half-Bads in White Regalia by Cody Caetano
• God Isn't Here Today by Francine Cunningham
• Women of the Fur Trade by Frances Koncan
• Weird Rules to Follow by Kim Spencer
• Buffalo is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel
• Making Love with the Land by Joshua Whitehead

Published prose in French:

• Bienvenue, Alyson by J.D. Kurtness
• L'or des mélèzes by Carole Labarre
• Frétillant et agile by Jocelyn Sioui

Published poetry in English:

• Trailer Park Shakes by Justene Dion-Glowa
• Where the Sea Kuniks the Land by ​​Ashley Qilavaq-Savard
• The Big Melt by Emily Riddle
• Whitemud Walking by Matthew James Weigel
• Shapeshifters by Délani Valin

Published poetry in French:

• Enfants du lichen by Maya Cousineau Mollen
• Atik utei. Le cœur du caribou by Rita Mestokosho

Published work in an Indigenous language:

• Animals Illustrated: Narwhal by Solomon Awa
• The Honour Song by George Paul with illustrator Loretta Gould, translated by Barbara Sylliboy

Unpublished prose in English:

• Frank by David Agecoutay
• Home by Brandi Bird
• Seh Woo, My Teeth by Kerissa Dickie
• Settler Birds and Social NDNs in the City by Henry Heavyshield
• In the Morning by Scarlet Scott

Unpublished poetry in English:

• Rez Girls Are Forever by Leah Baptiste
• Once the Smudge is Lit by Kelsey Borgford
• A Child Called Dream by Kaitlyn Purcell
• Scattered Oblations by Cooper Skjeie

Published graphic novels, comics and illustrated books:

• Oolichan Moon by Samantha Beynon with illustrator Lucy Trimble
• Bedtime in Nunatsiavut by Raeann Brown
• Niitu and Chips by Babah Kalluk
• Kwändǖr by Cole Pauls 
• Together We Drum, Our Hearts Beat as One by Willie Poll, with illustrator Chief Lady Bird

This year's jury includes award-winning writers and scholars Billy-Ray Belcourt, Lisa Bird-Wilson, Warren Cariou, David Chariandy, Margery Fee, Otoniya Juliane Okot Bitek, Madeleine Reddon, June Scudeler, Niigaanwewidam Sinclair, Matthew Tétreault, Richard Van Camp, katherena vermette and Eldon Yellowhorn.

The awards are supported by the Pamela Dillon & Family Gift Fund, Penguin Random House Canada, the Department of English at Simon Fraser University, Scholastic Canada, the Centre for Equitable Library Access, Douglas & McIntyre and public crowdfunding.

The winners will be announced on National Indigenous Peoples Day, which is June 21, 2023.