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CBC
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Wayne K. Spear, Georges Erasmus and Rosanna Deerchild among winners for 2025 Indigenous Voices Awards
Social Sharing Wayne K. Spear, Georges Erasmus and Rosanna Deerchild are among this year's winners of the Indigenous Voices Awards (IVAs). Since 2017, the IVAs have recognized emerging Indigenous writers across the country for works in English, French and Indigenous languages. The awards have given a total of $247,000 to writers over their eight-year history. Spear and Erasmus won the $5,000 award for published prose in English for their book Hòt'a! Enough!: Georges Erasmus's Fifty-Year Battle for Indigenous Rights. The autobiography chronicles Dene leader Erasmus's decades-long fight for Indigenous rights, including his pivotal roles in the Berger Inquiry, the Oka Crisis, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and Aboriginal Healing Foundation. "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," said the jury in a citation. "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." The jurors for the English prizes were Cody Caetano, Camille Georgeson-Usher, Liz Howard, Jessica Johns, Conor Kerr, Jónína Kirton, Cecily Nicholson, and Otoniya Juliane Okot Bitek. A vivid look into the sacrifices and sheer determination of a person and his community in the continual struggle for recognition of our rights. Spear is a Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) educator and writer. His other books include Residential Schools, with the Words and Images of Survivors and Full Circle: The Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the Unfinished Work of Hope, Healing, and Reconciliation. Spear is based in Toronto. Erasmus is the former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, president of the Indian Brotherhood of Northwest Territories and chair of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. He is a recipient of the Order of Canada and is based in Yellowknife. Deerchild won the $5,000 award for published poetry in English for her collection She Falls Again. The title follows the voice of a poet attempting to survive as an Indigenous person in Winnipeg when so many are disappearing. Riddled with uncertainties, like if the crow she speaks to is a trickster, the poet hears the message of the Sky Woman who is set on dismantling the patriarchy. Through short poems and prose this collection calls for reclamation and matriarchal power. "With precision, humour 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," said the IVA jury in a citation. "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 it's the lovers who will save us all." With precision, humour 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. - IVA jury Deerchild has been storytelling for more than 20 years, currently as host of CBC's Unreserved. Deerchild also developed and hosted This Place, a podcast series for CBC Books around the Indigenous anthology This Place: 150 Years Retold. Her book, calling down the sky, is her mother's residential school survivor story. Deerchild is currently based in Winnipeg. The French prizes went to Émergence insoumise by Cyndy Wylde and Trouver la maison by Océane Kitura Bohémier-Tootoo. Previous winners include Alicia Elliott, Brandi Bird, Cody Caetano, Emily Riddle, 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 Canada Council for the Arts, Pamela Dillon & Family Gift Fund, Penguin Random House Canada, Scholastic Canada and Douglas & McIntyre.
Winnipeg Free Press
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Deerchild collects two honourary doctorates
As a writer who wears many hats, it's perhaps not surprising that Rosanna Deerchild has been awarded a pair of honorary doctorates in one month. The Winnipeg Cree author received an honourary doctor of letters from the University of Manitoba on June 4, then on June 12 had the same honour bestowed on her from the University of Winnipeg. In addition to hosting CBC's Unreserved, Deerchild is an award-winning poet, playwright and author; her most recent book was the 2024 poetry collection She Falls Again, published by Coach House Books. The collection, featuring her Sky Woman character, is shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Award in published poetry — the winner is being announced today. Buy on ● ● ● American essayist and novelist Leslie Jamison has won the 2025 Writers' Trust of Canada's $75,000 Weston International Award for her career in writing non-fiction. Jamison has written one novel (The Gin Closet) as well as five works of non-fiction including 2018's The Recovering and 2019's Make it Scream, Make it Burn. Her most recent book is the 2024 memoir Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story. Buy on The Weston International Award is a companion prize to the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-fiction, which is awarded to a Canadian author for their work of non-fiction. The most recent winner was Martha Baillie, who won the 2024 prize for her memoir There Is No Blue. Buy on ● ● ● The Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer prizes were also announced earlier this month in literary fiction, non-fiction and romance categories. The top award in literary fiction went to Scott Alexander Howard for his novel The Other Valley, which also made the long list for this year's CBC Canada Reads and was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Buy on On the non-fiction front, Anh Duong was the winner for his memoir Dear Da-Lê: A Father's Memoir of the Vietnam War and the Iranian Revolution. Buy on The winning book in the romance was Leanne Toshiko Simpson's novel Never Been Better. Each of the winning authors receives $20,000 as well as marketing and communications support to help grow their audiences. Buy on ● ● ● The short lists for the High Plains International Book Awards have been announced, and feature a handful of books with Manitoba connections. The awards recognize regional authors whose work reflect life on the 'high plains' — including Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta as well as seven states. Among those in contention: Carmen L Robertson, Judy Anderson and Katherine Boyer for Bead Talk: Indigenous Knowledge and Aesthetics from the Flatlands (published by University of Manitoba Press) in the art and photography category; Winnipeg's Michael Hutchinson for The Case of the Pilfered Pin: A Mighty Muskrats Mystery #5 in the Indigenous category; Trisia Eddy Woods for A Road Map for Finding Wild Horses, published by Winnipeg's Turnstone Press, in the woman writer category; and Winnipeg's E. McGregor for What Fills Your House Like Smoke in the first book category. The winners will be announced Oct. 4. ● ● ● Winnipeg-based journals Prairie Fire and Border Crossings were among those honoured at the 43rd National Magazine Awards, presented in Toronto on June 13. B.C.'s Shashi Bhat won silver in the fiction category for her story Code Orange, which appeared in the Summer 2024 edition of Priarie Fire, while Ontario's Erin Wilson won a silver in the poetry category for A Walking Prayer, which appeared in the Winter 2023-2024 edition, while. Black Umbrella, a suite of poems by Susan Musgrave which appeared in Border Crossings, merited a honourable mention. books@ Ben SigurdsonLiterary editor, drinks writer Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press's literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben. In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press's editing team before being posted online or published in print. It's part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
