Canada Reads winner Michelle Good among finalists for 2024 Indigenous Voices Awards
Canada Reads winner Michelle Good is among the authors shortlisted for the 2024 Indigenous Voices Awards.
Since 2017, the IVAs have recognized emerging Indigenous writers across Canada for works in English, French and Indigenous languages. The shortlists have been announced for four $5,000 categories: Published Prose, Published Poetry, Published Story and Fiction in French and Published Drama and Poetry in French.
Good's essay collection Truth Telling is a finalist for the published prose category.
In Truth Telling, Good explores many issues that are currently affecting Indigenous people in Canada while incorporating her own experience and family's legacy in seven personal essays. She contextualizes contemporary discussions about reconciliation, the emergence of Indigenous narratives and more through historical knowledge, essentially providing a resource to mobilize Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians alike into active change.
Good is a Cree writer and retired lawyer, as well as a member of Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. Five Little Indians, her first book, won the 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. It also won Canada Reads 2022 when it was championed by Ojibway fashion journalist Christian Allaire.
Other notable writers on the shortlists include Alicia Elliott, Angela Sterritt and Brandi Bird.
Elliott is shortlisted in the published prose category for And Then She Fell, a horror novel which follows a young woman named Alice struggling to navigate the early days of motherhood and live up to the unrealistic expectations of those around her.
Elliott is a Mohawk writer currently based in Brantford, Ont. Her writing has been published most recently in Room, Grain and The New Quarterly. She is also the author of the nonfiction book A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, a columnist for CBC Arts and CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2019. She was chosen by Tanya Talaga as the 2018 recipient of the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award.
Sterritt is a finalist for the published prose award for her memoir Unbroken. In Unbroken, she shares her story from navigating life on the streets to becoming an award-winning journalist. As a teenager, she wrote in her notebook to survive. Now, she reports on cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, showing how colonialism and racism create a society where Indigenous people are devalued. Unbroken is a story about courage and strength against all odds.
Sterritt is a journalist, writer and artist. She has previously worked as a host a reporter with CBC Vancouver. Sterritt is a member of the Gitxsan Nation and lives on Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh territories in Vancouver.
Bird is shortlisted for the published poetry award for her debut collection The All + Flesh. The book explores both internal and external cultural landscapes and lineages from the perspective of a Saulteaux, Cree and Métis writer.
The All + Flesh was shortlisted for two League of Canadian Poets prizes.
Bird is an Indigiqueer writer from Treaty 1 territory who is currently studying at the University of British Columbia. Their poems have been featured in various publications such as Catapult and Room Magazine. The All + Flesh is their first book.
The 2024 jurors are Frances Koncan, Emily Riddle, Shelagh Rogers, Smokii Sumac, Jordan Abel, Francis Langevin and Maya Cousineau Mollen.
The complete list of shortlisted authors is below.
Prose in English
- There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death or, The Born-Again Crow by Caleigh Crow
- And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott
- Truth Telling by Michelle Good
- The Secret Pocket by Peggy Janicki, illustrated by Carrielynn Victor
- Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris
- Unbroken by Angela Sterritt
Poetry in English
- The Star Poems by Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber
- The All + Flesh by Brandi Bird
- Elements by Jamesie Fournier, translated by Jaypeetee Arnakak
- Building a Nest from the Bones of my People by Cara-Lyn Morgan
Story and Fiction in French
- La vallée de l'étrange by J. D. Kurtness
- Piisim Napeu by Georges Pisimopeo
- Envole-toi, Mikun by Moira-Uashteskun Bacon
Poetry and Drama in French
- Akuteu by Soleil Launière
- Marguerite: le feu by Émilie Monnet
- Nipinapunan by Alexis Vollant
The winners will be announced on National Indigenous Peoples Day, which is June 21, 2024.
The IVAs also announced the winners of their unpublished categories, who were awarded $500 and editorial support and possible publication from Yarrow Magazine. Yarrow is a digital magazine co-founded by Jordan Abel, Conor Kerr, Jessica Johns and Chelsea Novak that focuses on Indigenous prose, poetry and nonfiction in English.
The list of winners are as follows:
Unpublished Poetry
- Coming of Age by Leah Baptiste
- Nanabush Trails and Four Others by Hannah Big Canoe
- styrofoam love by sakâw laboucan
- On the Threshold, I Taste Lightning by Jordan Redekop-Jones
Unpublished Prose
- Kristopher with a K by Dennis Allen
- Hungry by Jenn Ashton
- Our Rez Anomaly by Henry Heavyshield
- łuk'é náte by Kaitlyn Purcell
