Shortlist Announced for the Eighth Annual Indigenous Voices Awards

May 7, 2025: The Indigenous Voices Awards, the only major literary prize to celebrate creativity and excellence for work by emerging Indigenous writers, today announced nine recipients of $500 each for their outstanding unpublished writing. Their IVAs-recognized work will be shared with Yarrow Magazine for future publishing consideration.

Finalists were also announced today for this year’s published prose and poetry categories, and recipients will be announced on June 21: visit IndigenousVoicesAwards.org for more information. The IVAs French prizes will be awarded on June 15 during the Kwe! festival: visit the Kwahiatonhk! website for more details.

Founded in 2017 with a crowd-funded purse of just over $115,000, the IVAs have to date awarded $206,000 to emerging Indigenous writers, working in a variety of genres and languages.

“For many years, published writing by Indigenous writers was remarkably underrepresented, especially in traditional publishing,” says IVAs co-chair Deanna Reder. “The few stories that were published rarely demonstrated the range of Indigenous experiences and creativity that it could. The IVAs were founded in response to a major literary publication dismissing Indigenous work, and it’s the huge outpouring of support following the controversy that allowed the IVAs to become an influential force in the literary landscape, creating space for readers and publishers to discover incredible Indigenous authors. To this day, all IVAs prize money remains entirely crowd-funded, speaking to how much support – from all around the world –  is behind new Indigenous voices.”

Recipients – Unpublished Poetry

“houses made of pollen” & other poems by Henry Heavyshield (Kainai)

“Henry Heavyshield writes beautiful poetry from a practiced hand and deep observation. Heavyshield crafts form and content to hold poetry in language that is funny, irreverent, cutting, tender. What a joy to read these poems—with what awe we present them back to you.”

“Homecoming” by aleria mckay (Onondaga & Teme Augama Anishnabai)

“aleria mckay’s poems are invitational, generous, lovely and painful. Having been brought up in language that was “stitched” to the tongue, mother tongue having been ripped away, these poems are stunning in their lavishness.”

“And Then” by Dawn Amber Tonks (Secwepemc – St’uxwtéws)
“Dawn Amber Tonks’s poems are set inside carefully and lovingly drawn panels that bring together the contemporary, urban, and expansive landscapes of the Rockies, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, drawing out the city limits, reminding to keep a fire, sing, laugh, and teach students how to protest. These poems powerfully invite us to challenge the dominant narratives through a new poetics of contemporary Indigenous poetry that names and remembers in drawn dreams and poems.”

“Shapeshifter” by Kevin Wesaquate (Cree – Piapot First Nation)
“What a delight to read Kevin Wesaquate’s poetry. Underscored by serious themes—identity, racism, storytelling, culture, wisdom and survival—in language that is clever, brilliant, humourous and deadly serious, the poems cover the time of ‘the monstering’ with Cookie Monster and memories of a shapeshifter boyhood in the rez: ‘yelp[ing] out at dusk inviting the stars with coyotes / Howling to the setting sun /… Feeling genuine Indigenous love.’ These are great poems to meet and return to, again and again.”

Recipients – Unpublished Prose

“Archive of Forever” by Jesset Karlen (Métis)
“Anticipatory, smooth, and brimming with grandeur, ‘Archive of Forever’ wins the reader over through absolute worldbuilding and eunoia. A loveable, exciting lead is found in Maggie, whose quest to find her lost book brings her into a strange new realm. Jesset Karlen is a writer to watch.”

“Intertribal” by Kieran Rice (Snuneymuxw First Nation)
“Elegant and revelatory, Kieran Rice’s ‘Intertribal’ promises a rewarding story and delivers one with depth, believability, and understanding. Here is a writer who relishes the comedy of performance, the nuances of gesture, the human need for belonging, and the innumerable pleasures of a daring yet considered voice.”

“White Ash Falling” by Chantal Rondeau (Northern Tutchone)
“Reality and time rupture in Chantal Rondeau’s ‘White Ash Falling.’ A richly lyrical, brooding meditation on prophecy, survival, and the sacredness of remembering, the lives of Sán’a Cho, Lucille, and Grace form a deft palimpsest, revealing what no single story could. Rondeau’s intense, relentless prose explores the strong pull of a riverbed, the abyss of legacy, and glimpses of futures long before they come to pass.”

“Life is Water” by Nolan Schmerk (Ojibway)
“‘Life is Water’ nimbly particularizes a strenuous journey to the mouth of Lake Superior. With brevity, patience, and precision, Nolan Schmerk watches with both ears, listens with both eyes, and offers up the glorious ordinariness of life in the spring time. A lasting ode to the highs and lows of travelling with, to, and for nibi.”

“Selected Stories from ‘K’wootxw’” by Jennifer B.S. Williams (Gitksan/Sekani)
“An incantatory subtlety oozes through the voice and worlds of Jennifer B.S. Williams. What begin as deceptively quiet tales of reconnection and shortcuts soon transform into supernatural terrors of the highest order. We cannot wait to read more from Williams.”

One in each of the following two categories will be the recipient of a $5,000 award, to be announced on 21 June 2025

Finalists – Published Prose

Hòt’a! Enough!: Georges Erasmus’s Fifty-Year Battle for Indigenous Rights (Dundurn Press), by Wayne K. Spear (Kanien’kehá:ka) and Georges Erasmus (Dene)

“Hòt’a! Enough! Takes us through the incredible journey of Georges Erasmus and the impact that he has made on this country through his constant dedication to bettering the lives of all Indigenous Peoples and in doing so all people in Canada. For Indigenous peoples this book is an inspiration. A vivid look into the sacrifices and sheer determination of a person and his community in the continual struggle for recognition of our rights. For non-Indigenous peoples this book is an eye opener into what has and continues to go into the constant struggle for recognition and respect and the role that Georges has played in that.”

Hummingbird/Aamo-binashee (Orca Books), written and illustrated by Jennifer Leason (Minegoziibe Anishinabe – Pine Creek First Nation)

“About the teachings of the Hummingbird sent during a time of darkness; beautiful both in story and art, told in both English and Anishinaabemowin”

Lost at Windy River: A True Story of Survival (Orca Books), by Trina Rathgeber (Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation)

“a true story about a girl’s survival on the land, initially told by a famous Canadian author and now reclaimed and retold as a graphic novel by the survivor’s granddaughter; a must-read”

Niizh (Playwrights Canada Press), by Joelle Peters (Anishinaabe)
“a play with a relatable and hopeful romantic story”

The Knowing (HarperCollins Canada), by Tanya Talaga (Anishinaabe – Fort William First Nation)

“a relatable and exciting investigative journey through archives to find a missing loved one and understand how she could have disappeared”

Finalists – Published Poetry

Cloud Missives (Tin House), by Kenzie Allen (Haudenosaunee)

This important collection gathers and repairs with meticulous understanding of the precarious body. Careful and attentive to heavy material, the poems in Cloud Missives are aloft in cadence, connection, “…already / a new constellation.” Taking on dear and difficult work, Kenzie Allen wills new ways. The poet is a “well” and a “gate”—a strong voice that proclaims, “let there be paths among the thermals.”
Once the Smudge is Lit (Kegedonce Press), by Kelsey Borgford (Nbisiing Nishnaabe, Nipissing Nation) and Cole Forrest (Ojibwe Nipissing Nation)

The poems of Once the Smudge is Lit are living braids of kinship, land, and Nishnaabemowin. Borgford and Forrest take us from “words etched on the moon” to “the shores of Gitchigami,” from Nanabush’s laughter to “the indian country subreddit,” to a tender “ceremony of syrup.” These poems of witness and offering are a triumph.

KINAUVUNGA?/ᑭᓇᐅᕗᖓ (Musagetes Press), by Aedan Corey (Inuit)

In KINAUVUNGA?/ᑭᓇᐅᕗᖓ time is sacred. Grief is collective, older than the poet. Letting the pain out of the body as “an act of sovereignty” Corey’s elegant offerings tend to the wreckage and gather nourishment. These poems and illustrations carry uqittuq/ᐅᕐᑭᑦᑐᕐᒃ “light (is not heavy)” that heralds a welling strength. Here, a name is connection, community, and a promise that lives.

She Falls Again (Coach House Press), by Rosanna Deerchild (Cree)

With precision, humor, and love, Deerchild invites us into trickster conversations, cultural and familial memory, the beauty and resistance of Indigenous life, and the revolutionary power of Sky Woman’s return. Deerchild instructs that “these stories are scars i turn to stars/set free in the sky of telling,” where the rhythm of Cree “carries/[her] back to bone memory,” and assures us that “its the lovers who will save us all.”

What Fills Your House Like Smoke (Thistledown Press), by E. McGregor (Métis)

McGregor’s What Fills Your House Like Smoke offers us a portrait in verse not only of her grandmother, but of the face and lifelines of lyric’s capacity to bring both joy and grief into an intimate register that stays with you. This is an accomplished work that is both ancestral and future-bound: “record dispatches to yourself, your future/self or the one that’s vanished. listen.”

Citations provided by the 2025 IVAs jury.

Recipients to be announced on June 21.

In 2025 the Indigenous Voices Awards English prizes are administered by SFU professors and literary scholars Deanna Reder (Cree-Métis) and Sophie McCall (settler), and poet and UBC professor Billy-Ray Belcourt (Cree). This year’s jurors for the English prizes are Cody Caetano, Camille Georgeson-Usher, Liz Howard, Jessica Johns, Conor Kerr, Jónína Kirton, Cecily Nicholson, and Otoniya Juliane Okot Bitek.

Past IVAs recipients include Brandi Bird, Maya Cousineau Mollen, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Tanya Tagaq, Émilie Monnet, and jaye simpson. Previous IVAs finalists in unpublished categories who went on to publish their work include Kelsey Borgford, Francine Cunningham, Marie-Andrée Gill, Elaine McArthur, Smokii Sumac, Francine Merasty, Amanda Peters, and Cody Caetano. Over 50 works from IVAs writers can also be found in Carving Space: The Indigenous Voices Awards Anthology published by McClelland & Stewart (2023), co-edited by Jordan Abel, Carleigh Baker, and Madeleine Reddon.

Support for the Indigenous Voices Awards is welcome through the Ontario Arts Foundation:  https://oafdn.ca/make-a-donation/.

The Indigenous Voices Awards is grateful to acknowledge support from Canada Council for the Arts (2024-2027). The IVAs also receives generous support from Penguin Random House Canada, the Pamela Dillon & Family Gift Fund, the Centre for Equitable Library Access (CELA), and Scholastic Canada. In addition, the IVAs co-chairs gratefully acknowledge support from Douglas & McIntyre for its donation of a portion of its sales of Richard Wagamese’s What Comes From Spirit and royalties from the republished version of Days of Augusta, by Mary Augusta Tappage Evans. The IVAs co-chairs also thank the countless supporters who have donated to the IVAs crowd-sourced fund over the years.

Connect and Share:

Indigenousvoicesawards.com

Kwahiatonhk.com

The IVAs logo is designed by Lou-ann Neel (Kwakwaka’wakw).

-30

For images, interviews or more information please contact:

Katie Saunoris | KSPR
katiesaunoris@gmail.com

Media Gallery – IVAs 2025

NT4