To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Indigenous Voices Awards, Carving Space shares works of its finalists over the past five years, edited by Jordan Abel, Carleigh Baker, and Madeleine Reddon. We welcome Carleigh Baker and three contributors to the anthology, and former finalists of the Awards: Nathan Adler, Troy Sebastian, and jaye simpson. They’ll share readings from their works and discuss the emerging luminaries they admire, what it’s felt like to have their own writing careers burgeon, and the exceptional breadth and depth in modern Indigenous writing. Moderated by Carleigh Baker.
Presented in partnership with SFU Library.
Event Participants:
NATHAN ADLER is a writer and artist who works in many different mediums, including audio, video, drawing, painting, and glass. His novel "Wrist", an Indigenous monster story, is published by Kegedonce Press. He is a member of Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation.
CARLEIGH BAKER is an nêhiyaw âpihtawikosisân /Icelandic writer who lives as a guest on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwu7mesh, and səl̓ilwəta peoples. Her work has appeared in Best Canadian Essays, The Short Story Advent Calendar, and The Journey Prize Stories. She also writes reviews for the Globe and Mail and the Literary Review of Canada. Her debut story collection, Bad Endings (Anvil, 2017) won the City of Vancouver Book Award, and was also a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Award, the Emerging Indigenous Voices Award for fiction, and the BC Book Prize Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award.
TROY SEBASTIAN |nupqu ʔak·ǂam̓ is a writer from the Ktunaxa community of ʔaq̓am. He is a doctoral student, Vanier Scholar and Sessional Instructor in the University of Victoria’s Department of Writing. His story The Mission won the 2022 National Magazine Award Gold Prize for Fiction.
jaye simpson is an Oji-Cree Saulteaux Indigiqueer from the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation. Their first poetry collection, it was never going to be okay, won the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Published Poetry in English. Their second collection, a body more tolerable, is forthcoming in 2024.
