2024 JURORS
Emily Riddle (Okimâw Pipikwan Iskwêw)
is Nehiyaw and a member of the Alexander First Nation (Kipohtakaw). She is a writer, textile artist, and library worker based in Amisko Waciw Wâskahikan (Edmonton, Canada). In 2022, she released her first full length poetry collection, The Big Melt which won the Griffin Poetry Prize Canadian first book award. Her writing has been published in The Malahat Review, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, among others. Emily Riddle is a dedicated Treaty 6 descendant and a semi-dedicated Edmonton Oilers fan.
Frances Koncan (she/they)
is an Anishinaabe and Slovene playwright currently living in Vancouver, British Columbia, within the shared, unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Originally from Couchiching First Nation, they grew up on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba and attended the University of Manitoba (BA Psychology) and the City University of New York Brooklyn College (MFA Playwriting). They are currently Assistant Professor of Playwriting at the University of British Columbia. Select plays include: Women of the Fur Trade, Space Girl, and zahgidiwin/love.
Smokii Sumac
is a Ktunaxa Two-Spirit and Transgender Poet, PhD Candidate, Podcast host, and emerging playwright. He is a two time Indigenous Voices Awards winner, first awarded in the unpublished poetry in English category, which lead to his IVA-winning collection you are enough: love poems for the end of the world being published in 2018. His podcast, The ʔasqanaki Podcast features a range of Indigenous guest musicians and writers including Tenille Campbell and G.R. Gritt. Most recently, he has been working on his first play Seven and One Heart with the National Queer and Trans playwriting unit, and he is proud to be a member of the xaȼqanaǂ ʔitkiniǂ (many ways of working on the same thing) project where he supports conversations around gender and sexual diversity throughout the research process, as the team asks the question qapsin kiʔin ʔakaǂxuniyam? What would a healthy community look like?
Shelagh Rogers
A broadcaster for more than 40 years, Shelagh has worked on programs such as Morningside, The Arts Tonight, This Morning, and most recently The Next Chapter from 2008 to 2023. In 2011, she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada for promoting Canadian culture, for advocacy in mental health, truth and reconciliation, and adult literacy. That same year, she was inducted as an Honorary Witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a role she committed to for the rest of her life. Shelagh returns as a juror for the IVAs, having served in its inaugural year in 2018.
Jordan Abel
is a queer Nisga’a writer who lives in Edmonton. He is the author of The Place of Scraps (winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize), Un/inhabited, and Injun (winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize). Abel’s NISHGA, released in 2021, is a deeply personal and autobiographical book that attempts to address the complications of contemporary Indigenous existence and the often invisible intergenerational impact of residential schools. It was awarded the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and the VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres award, and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction, and the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. His recent book, Empty Spaces was released by McClelland & Stewart in 2023. (Abel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta where he teaches Indigenous Literatures and Creative Writing.