Iqaluit mayor, poet nominated for 2023 Indigenous Voices Awards

NEWS  JUN 18, 2023 – 9:30 AM EDT

Iqaluit mayor, poet nominated for 2023 Indigenous Voices Awards

Solomon Awa and Ashley Qilavaq-Savard honoured for books published through Inhabit Media

By Meral Jamal

Iqaluit Mayor Solomon Awa and artist and poet Ashley Qilavaq-Savard are among 32 nominees chosen from across Canada for the 2023 Indigenous Voices Awards.

Now in their sixth year, the awards honour Indigenous writers and storytellers in lands claimed by Canada.

This year’s awards will recognize writers across eight categories including published prose in English and French, published work in an Indigenous language, and published graphic novels, graphics and illustrated books.

Six categories carry a cash prize of $5,000 each and two categories carry a cash prize of $2,000 each.

From Nunavut, Awa has been nominated for his book Animals Illustrated: Narwhal and Ashley Qilavaq-Savard has been nominated for her poetry collection Where the Sea Kuniks the Land.

For Qilavaq-Savard, an Inuk French Canadian living in Iqaluit, the nomination is special given it’s her first poetry collection.

She said writing poems was a way for her to learn more about Inuktitut and celebrate it.

“For me, one of the biggest motivators … for poetry writing — the one that pushed me to say, ‘I’m going to be a poet’ — is trying to write a book in Inuktitut,” she said.

“It’s such a beautiful language and you say things very differently than in English.

“It was through writing poetry and learning Inuktitut that I could really explore who I was.” 

Both Qilavaq-Savard and Awa’s books are published by Inhabit Media. They were nominated by a jury, the majority of which includes Indigenous jurors, published authors and at least one member fluent in each of English and French.

According to awards co-chair Deanna Reder, the nomination of two books by Nunavummiut this year reflects the strength and resilience of Inuit writers and publishers, who continue to preserve and champion the language.

“Literature written in different [Indigenous] languages needs a lot more support … but the one shoutout I want to make year after year for high quality Indigenous language works is the stuff that’s put out by Inhabit Media,” Reder said.

“Inhabit Media has published some of the most beautiful work for any age level produced from all the publishers that we work with. So while there’s such a lot of way to go, there’s clearly some key players already being successful.”

The winners of the 2023 Indigenous Voices Awards will be announced online on National Indigenous Peoples’ Day on June 21.

An anthology of more than 50 selected works from the first five years of the Indigenous Voices Awards, called Carving Space, was published by McClelland & Stewart and Penguin Random House Canada on May 9.

Since they were established, the awards have supported the work of more than 100 emerging Indigenous authors, honouring published and unpublished work in English, French and Indigenous languages including Inuktut, and have dispersed $143,000 in award money so far.