Listen to this article
Estimated 5 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Jaye Simpson and Tracey Lindberg are among the authors shortlisted for the 2026 Indigenous Voices Awards.
Since 2017, the IVAs have recognized emerging Indigenous writers across Canada for works in English, French and Indigenous languages.
The shortlists have been announced for two $5,000 categories: published prose in English and published poetry in English.
Simpson’s poetry collection, a body more tolerable, is a finalist for the published poetry category.
a body more tolerable is a collection of poetry examining Indigenous grief, trans identity and frustrated desires. Resisting conventional ideas of sex and physicality, this collection of mythology and folklore explores self-divinized female fury to imagine a transformative new reality.
Simpson is a Two-Spirit Oji-Cree person with roots in Sapotaweyak and Skownan Cree Nation who often writes about being queer in the child welfare system, as well as being queer and Indigenous.
Their debut poetry collection, it was never going to be okay, appeared as a finalist for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Canadian writers in 2021 and was the winner in the poetry category for the 2021 Indigenous Voices Awards.
In 2026 they were nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in the category of transgender poetry.
Lindberg’s book The Cree Word for Love: Sâkihitowin is a finalist for the published prose category.
Guided by the teachings of an Elder, author Lindberg and artist George Littlechild explore the cultural nuances of affection in The Cree Word for Love: Sâkihitowin.
Through creative original fiction and iconic paintings, one author and one artist come together to create and curate a collaboration depicting themes of familial love, self-love, strength in the face of loss and violence and a deeper exploration of human relations.
Lindberg is a lawyer, professor, activist, blues singer and expert in indigenous law. She was raised in northern Alberta and is a member of the As’in’i’wa’chi Ni’yaw Nation.
Her debut novel Birdie was named a Canada Reads finalist in 2016 and won the OLA Evergreen Award and a KOBO Emerging Writer Prize. She has published many legal articles on issues related to indigenous law and indigenous women.
Other notable writers on the shortlist include Colin Wolf, Danica Roache and Tawahum Bige.
Wolf and Roache are shortlisted in the published poetry category for CoyWolf and Five Seasons of Charlie Francis.
In Wolf’s allegory drama, Coywolf is a thriller and a guide for young revolutionaries trying to walk the paths of their ancestors and learning to navigate the grueling realities of making difficult and life-changing choices. The story follows a half-Coyote, half-Wolf hybrid Isidor and his battle against the human’s expansion.
Wolf is a Métis performer, theatre maker, and activist who was born and raised in the North-East of Moh’kins’tsis (Calgary). In spring of 2024, Wolf began working as the managing director at Screen Productions Yukon Association. He is currently residing in Whitehorse serving as the director at Gwaandak theatre.
Roache’s debut novel Five Seasons of Charlie Francis is a bold, refreshing and darkly comical story about a Mi’kmaw woman of mixed ancestry named Charlie Francis trying to balance academia, grief, love and new motherhood.
Roache is a member of Glooscap First Nation and is a mixed-ancestry writer living in Punamu’kwati’jk (Dartmouth). Her debut novel Five Seasons of Charlie Francis was a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and two Nova Scotia Book Awards: the Dartmouth Book Award and the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award.
The complete list of shortlisted authors is below.
Prose in English
- The Cree Word for Love: Sâkihitowin by Tracey Lindberg
- ᑭᐢᑭᓱᒥᑐᐠ kiskisomitok: ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ to remind each and one another by reuben quinn
- Five Seasons of Charlie Francis by Danica Roache
- CoyWolf by Colin Wolf
Poetry in English
The winners will be announced on June 21, 2026.
Past recipients include Billy-Ray Belcourt, Jaye Simpson, Brandi Bird, Rosanna Deerchild and Wayne K. Spear with Georges Erasmus.
The IVAs also announced the winners of their unpublished categories, who were awarded $500 and possible publication from Yarrow Magazine. Yarrow is a digital magazine co-founded by Jordan Abel, Conor Kerr, Jessica Johns and Chelsea Novak that focuses on Indigenous prose, poetry and nonfiction in English.
The list of winners are below:
Unpublished Poetry
- Clem Clem by Kieran Kalls Rice
- nightingale by kit-xgwélemc kennedy
- What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid? by Michelle Poirier Brown
- I wanted to be a ceremony/cemetery by Kennedy Willier
Unpublished Prose
- Eyebright by Odette Auger
- The Paper Gown/The River Remembers by Dawn Dionne
- The Buffalo and The Raven by Daly Quintal
- Overexposure by Cooper Skjeie
