Cody Caetano and Emily Riddle among winners of 2023 Indigenous Voices Awards

Anishinaabe writer Cody Caetano and nêhiyaw writer Emily Riddle are among this year's winners of the Indigenous Voices Awards (IVAs). 

Since 2017, the IVAs have recognized emerging Indigenous writers across Canada for works in English, French and Indigenous languages. The awards have given a total of $182,000 to writers over their six-year history. 

This year, the nine recipients received a total of $39,000 across eight categories. 

Caetano takes home the award for published prose in English for his debut memoir, Half-Bads in White Regalia.

Caetano is a Toronto-based writer of Anishinaabe and Portuguese descent and an off-reserve member of Pinaymootang First Nation. He wrote Half-Bads in White Regalia as part of his Master's in creative writing at University of Toronto.

"An exceedingly well crafted memoir, Half-Bads in White Regalia is a love story to siblings stepping up, to young people showing up for one another. There is magic in this book," said the jury in a citation. 

The 2023 jurors were 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.

• Cody Caetano's memoir explores a tangled family history

Half-Bads in White Regalia recounts Caetano's experiences living alone with his siblings in a rural house. The kids are left to fend for themselves when their parents split up and are pulled in different directions – their mother goes off to connect with her Anishinaabe roots after finding out she was removed from her birth family in the Sixties Scoop, and their father, a Portuguese immigrant, isn't present. 

"I think it's important to learn about my family and where we come from, because it allows me to be a human being in a good way. It allows me to have a sense of belonging," he said in an interview with Shelagh Rogers.

This isn't the first time he was recognized by the IVAs – in 2020, he was awarded the IVA for unpublished prose for excerpts from Half-Bads in White Regalia. The memoir was also longlisted for this year's Canada Reads.

LISTEN | Cody Caetano discusses Half-Bads in White Regalia:

The Next Chapter15:58Cody Caetano on Half- Bads in White Regalia: A Memoir

Cody Caetano talks to Shelagh Rogers about his memoir, Half- Bads in White Regalia.

Emily Riddle is Nehiyaw and a member of the Alexander First Nation (Kipohtakaw). She is the co-recipient of the IVA for published poetry in English for The Big Melt, a poetry collection inspired by contemporary Indigenous life. The collection also won her the first ever Griffin Poetry Prize Canadian First Book Prize. 

"Emily Riddle's The Big Melt is a book about transformation and unspectacular intimacies imbued with a Prairie feminist sensibility that is both humorous and intellectual," said the IVA jury in a citation. 

"I hope [the audience] find[s] themselves in conversation with it, and I hope that they find little bits of themselves reflected back, especially other Cree people or other Indigenous friends reading the book," said Riddle on Radio Active, the Edmonton morning radio show. 

Learning to Count, a poem featured in The Big Melt, was also shortlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize. 

The co-winner of the published poetry prize is Dene and Métis writer Matthew James Weigel, for Whitemud Walking.

The complete list of the 2023 IVA winners is below.

• Published prose in English: Half-Bads in White Regalia by Cody Caetano
• Published prose in French: L'or des mélèzes by Carole Labarre
• Published poetry in English (co-winners): The Big Melt by Emily Riddle and Whitemud Walking by Matthew James Weigel
• Published poetry in French: Enfants du lichen by Maya Cousineau Mollen
• Published work in an Indigenous language: Animals Illustrated: Narwhal by Solomon Awa
• Unpublished prose in English: Frank by David Agecoutay
• Unpublished poetry in English: Scattered Oblations by Cooper Skjeie
• Published graphic novels, comics and illustrated books: Oolichan Moon by Samantha Beynon and illustrator Lucy Trimble

WATCH | The 2023 Indigenous Voices Awards:

The IVAs released an anthology of selected winning entries from the award's first five years, called Carving Space, in May 2023.

Previous winners include Brian Thomas Isaac, jaye simpson, Tanya Tagaq and Jesse Thistle. 

The IVAs are a crowd-funded non-profit organization with additional support provided by the Pamela Dillon & Family Gift Fund, Penguin Random House Canada, the Department of English at Simon Fraser University and Scholastic Canada.