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Rosanna Deerchild, Wayne K. Spear and Georges Erasmus named 2025 IVA recipients

Indigenous Voices Awards logo

Lou-ann Neel

Rosanna Deerchild and Wayne K. Spear and Georges Erasmus have been named the recipients of this year’s Indigenous Voices Awards.

Deerchild received the $5,000 award for published poetry in English for She Falls Again (Coach House Press). “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,” the jury wrote in their citation. Kenzie Allen, Kelsey Borgford and Cole Forrest, Aedan Corey, and E. McGregor were the other finalists in the published poetry category.

Spear and Erasmus received the $5,000 award for published prose in English for Hòt’a! Enough!: Georges Erasmus’s Fifty-Year Battle for Indigenous Rights (Dundurn Press). In their citation, the jury called the book “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 Indigenous readers and, for non-Indigenous readers “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 other finalists included Jennifer Leason, Trina Rathgeber, Joelle Peters, and Tanya Talaga.

Both of this year’s winning titles are published by independent Canadian presses. The recipients were announced on June 21, National Indigenous Peoples Day.

The prizes, now in their eighth year, honour the sovereignty of Indigenous creative voices and support the work of Indigenous writers.

Recipients of the $500 prizes for unpublished work in English were announced last month.

The IVAs French prizes were awarded earlier this month during the Kwe! festival to Cyndy Wylde and Océane Kitura Bohémier-Tootoo.

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June 23rd, 2025

1:08 pm

Category: Awards, Industry News

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