#indigenous authors

Remember to also read books by Indigenous authors on this Earth Day and all year.

The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do is Ask by Mary Siisip Geniusz

As Long as Grass Grows by Dina Gilio-Whitaker

Iwígara by Enrique Salmón

Fresh Banana Leaves by Jessica Hernandez

The Red Deal by The Red Nation

Earth Keeper by N. Scott Momaday

Dwellings by Linda Hogan

In grade school, we never read Indigenous authors. Instead, we read the typical white man's books that just about every American kid reads over the course of their public school lives. I don’t think I ever even read a book written by a woman during my time in grade school. The books we read are only culturally relevant to a small group of people. Most of the kids I went to school with, including myself, never saw ourselves or the lives we live represented in the media we were forced to consume and analyze. Today’s post is for the 2SLGBTQIA+ and POC people who never got to read books that represented their lives and struggles, and for the authors whose works are not recognized because of their identity. 

Ma-Nee Chacaby

Ma-Nee Chacaby is an activist, artist, author, 2-Spirit, Lesbian, Ojibwa-Cree elder. Her works relay the stories of abuse, addiction, and poverty she experienced throughout her life. Chacaby was first introduced to the concept of being 2-Spirit by her grandmother, who told her that “…you have two spirits in your body, mind, soul and your heart.” She tells Chacany that seven generations ago, when she was a little girl, 2-Spirit people lived freely among the First Nations people without fear of discrimination. 

In 2016, Ma-Nee Chacaby (with Mary Louisa Plummer) released A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder. The book has won multiple awards, including winning Canada Reads in 2025, the Alison Prentice Award in 2018, and the Oral History Association Book Award in 2017. The book was shortlisted for the Lesbian Memoir/Biography, Lambda Literary Awards in 2017, and was nominated for the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature in 2016 as well. 

The book describes what life was like for Chacaby, living with her Grandmother in a rural Ojibwa community (near Lake Nipigon, Ontario). Chacaby faces many challenges, overcoming abuse and alcoholism in her community, as well as the economic, social, and health challenges stemming from colonization. 

Decades later, Chacaby has raised her children, gotten sober (even working as an alcoholism counsellor), came out as a Lesbian controversially in 1988 in a Thunder Bay Television news story, and begun painting as a part of her healing process (See her exhibits HERE). 

Chacaby has since become an activist for 2SLGBTQ+ and Indigenous people, leading the very first Thunder Bay Pride Parade in 2013. 

Buy A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder!

Follow Chacaby on Instagram!

Gwen Benaway

Gwen Benaway (she/her) is a 2-Spirit trans poet of Anishinaabe and Métis descent. She is credited as one of Canada’s most widely published trans authors, having published four poetry collections: Ceremonies for the Dead, Passage, Holy Wild, and day/break, a collection of essays, and worked as an editor for the short stories  Maiden Mother and Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes. Benaway is a Ph.D student at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. Poetry in Voice states that Benaway’s work is critically acclaimed in Canada, and that she was a “finalist for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers from the Writer’s Trust of Canada, and her third poetry collection, Holy Wild, was longlisted for the Pat Lowther Award, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Trans Poetry, the Trillium Award, the Triangle Publishing Press Trans and Gender Variant Literary Award, and was the winner of the 2019 Governor General Literary Award for Poetry.” 

Benaway claims in a ‘micro-interview’ with Poetry in Voice that Anne Sexton helped her discover the confessional poetry that has become her focus, alongside Indigenous authors  Marilyn Dumont and Gregory Scofield.  

Buy Benaway’s Books here & here!

Joshua Whitehead

Joshua Whitehead (he/him) is a 2-spirit, Oji-Cree academic and author from the Peguis First Nation on Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba, working as an Associate Professor at the University of Calgary on Treaty 7 territory. 

Whitehead is a prolific author and poet whose works include, but are not limited to, Jonny Appleseed (2018), Making Love with the Lands (2022), and full-metal indigiqueer (2017). Find Whitehead’s full list of publications on Goodreads. Whitehead’s works feature the intersectionality of queerness, Indigenous identity, and mental health.

Whitehead began writing poetry in kindergarten, but he really felt that he was a poet in high school. His poems are typically lyrical, with an experimental and intertextual style. He claims in his ‘micro-interview with Poetry in Voice that in his poem "full-metal oji-cree" (a poem in Poetry in Voice’s anthology), he seeks to remove the idea of Indigeneity from a historical context and write it into a futuristic, sci-fi setting. 

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Horror being my second most read genre, I did not think books could still get under my skin the way this one did lol. It follows four Blackfoot men who are seemingly being hunted by a vengeful... something... years after a fateful hunting trip that happened just before they went their separate ways. The horror, the dread, the something... pure nightmare fuel 10/10

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

An apocalyptic novel following an isolated Anishinaabe community in the far north who lose contact with the outside world. When two of their young men return from their college with dire news, they set about planning on how to survive the winter, but when outsiders follow, lines are drawn in the community that might doom them all. This book is all dread all the time, the use of dreams and the inevitability of conflict weighs heavy til the very end. An excellent apocalypse story if you're into that kind of thing.

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

This book follows Jade, a deeply troubled mixed race teenager with a shitty homelife who's *obsessed* with slasher movies. When she finds evidence that there's a killer running about her soon-to-be gentrified small town, she weaponises that knowledge to predict what's going to happen next. I don't think this book will work for most people, it's a little stream of consciousness, Jade's head is frequently a very difficult place to be in, but by the last page I had so much love for her as a character and the emotional rollercoaster she's on that I had to mention it here.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

Taking a bit of a left turn but this charming YA murder mystery really stuck with me this year. Elatsoe is a teenage girl living in an America where myths, monsters, and magic are all real every day occurrences. When her cousin dies mysteriously with no witnesses, she decides to do whatever she can, including using her ability to raise the spirits of dead animals, to solve the case. The worldbuilding was just really fun in this one, but the Native American myths and influence were the shining star for me, and the asexual rep was refreshing to see in a YA book too tbh

Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq

Hello from Indiana! You're in luck - Anne happens to have a handful of nonfiction books by Indigenous authors covering Indigenous history on her TBR right now! She hasn't read these yet, but she's looking forward to them. If you get to them first, let us know what you thought!

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by Ojibwe author David Treuer. This book argues that Native culture is as alive today as it ever was. It's also been adapted for young readers (titled The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Life in Native America), so all ages can check it out. American Indian Stories by Yankton Sioux author Zitkala-Ša. Published in the 1920s, this one is a collection of stories, from memoir-style accounts to essays to traditions and legends.  You Were Made for This World: Celebrated Indigenous Voices Speak to Young People. This title is for younger readers, but it's a collection of art by "forty Indigenous writers, artists, activists, athletes, scholars and thinkers" (publisher's summary). To me, art is for all ages.

I am often told that I should be grateful for the progress that Western civilization has brought to these shores. I am not. This life of work-or-die is not an improvement on preinvasion living, which involved only a few hours of work a day for shelter and sustenance, performing tasks that people do now for leisure activities on their yearly vacations: fishing, collecting plants, hunting, camping, and so forth. The rest of the day was for fun, strengthening relationships, ritual and ceremony, cultural expression, intellectual pursuits, and the expert crafting of exceptional objects. I know this is true because I have lived like this, even in this era where the land is only a pale shadow of the abundance that once was. We have been lied to about the “harsh survival” lifestyles of the past. There was nothing harsh about it. If it was so harsh – such a brutish, menial struggle for existence – then we would not have evolved to become the delicate, intelligent creatures that we are.”

1) they can be triggering, why I put a TW, but (at least to me and my family) they’re not really sacred. They’re like supernatural vultures, honestly

2) Where’s the energy for the Nunnehi in Monster Boyband or Thunderbirds in any of those posts? What about my Piasa Bird series? My Mishipeshu post? Or anything else on my “Indigenous Monsters” Masterlist? It’s literally only for Raven Mockers and I don’t get it.

3) Do you write letters to Disney and Marvel? Do you comment on their posts about Wakanda (Wakonta/Wakonda is the Creator to many Indigenous Peoples. They pronounce it the same and the original comic creator literally said he got it from Indigenous Peoples)? Do you say anything about Thunderbird (John Proudstar)? No?? Then leave me alone oh my God(s)

4) Do you come for all these movies/TV shows/games/podcasts using the Sk*nW*lk*r or W*nd*g* names? They butcher what they actually are and look like, and make them into slasher fic monsters, but that’s okay? Get off my back

5) If you don’t know someone’s race!! Take a second to look at their profile!! Literally one of my most popular posts rn is a fuck Trump/fuck ICE post where I mention I’m Indigenous. It’s in the three post feature at the top of my profile if you click on it. It’s right under the Ask Me button.

https://sistahscifi.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorvd_cFbhQePwJ0fzJOu37JgOOaMdIykyVMvAXlmF8RCbGHjBDu

Every young person deserves the chance to feel like they belong, that they are recognized, that they matter. In the spirit of A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, You Were Made for This World brings together forty Indigenous writers, artists, activists, athletes, scholars and thinkers with a joint purpose: to celebrate the potential of young people, to share a sense of joy and pride in language, traditional and personal stories and teachings, and shared experiences, and to honor young people for who they are and what they dream of.