STAY TUNED FOR THE OPENING OF THE 9TH ANNUAL INDIGENOUS VOICES AWARDS in early December 2025

“The IVAs are a really important example of community rooted advocacy for the best literature in the country—and in the world, frankly. The IVAs open real doors and provide real support, encouragement, and resources for writers who are changing the landscape of literature in this country and beyond.”

—Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee), professor, author and IVAs champion

In 2025/2026 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 to be announced.

The Indigenous Voices Awards (IVAs) is a literary contest that aims to honour the sovereignty of Indigenous creative voices, and support and nurture the work of Indigenous writers in lands claimed by Canada. The IVAs are increasingly significant to the literary landscape, having elevated and championed the work of 145 Indigenous writers, introducing audiences around the world to compelling new literary voices.

Previous IVAs finalists in unpublished categories who went on to publish their work include Kelsey Borgford, Francine Cunningham, Marie-Andrée Gill, Elaine McArthur, Smokii Sumac, Francine Merasty,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, Cody Caetano, and Brandi Bird. 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 Voice Awards is welcome and deeply appreciated; a charitable receipt will be issued to all donations given through the Ontario Arts Foundation:  https://oafdn.ca/make-a-donation/,

The Indigenous Voices Awards acknowledge generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Penguin Random House Canada, Scholastic Canada, and the Pamela Dillon & Family Gift Fund, 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 Days of Augusta, by Mary Augusta Tappage Evans. The co-chairs also thank the countless supporters who have donated to the IVAs crowd-sourced fund over the years. Further donations are always welcome and deeply appreciated: please visit IndigenousVoicesAwards.org for more information.

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