Second Story Press has announced the winners of the 2018 Indigenous Writing and Illustration Contest, recognizing two authors and one illustrator. The co-winners for writing
are Jodie Callaghan, a Mìgmaq woman from Listuguj, Quebec, for her story The Train; and Michael
Hutchinson, a member of the Misipawistik Cree Nation who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, for his story The
Case of Windy Lake. The winning illustrator is Niki Watts, a Cree artist who lives in Bella Coola,
British Columbia.

The Train by Jodie Callaghan is a picture book manuscript about a young girl who finds her uncle waiting by an abandoned train station where he was once taken away to a residential school. Michael Hutchinson’s middle grade manuscript The Case of Windy Lake is what the author describes as “an Indigenous Hardy Boys.” Niki Watts submitted a portfolio of illustrations mainly in pencil that realistically depict animals, nature and humans with great emotional depth.

The jury consisted of Second Story Press publisher Margie Wolfe; writer Jan Bourdeau Waboose, who is First Nation Anishinaabe and the author of The Spirit Trackers; and writer, speaker, and consultant Monique Gray Smith, who is of Cree, Lakota, and Scottish ancestry and is the author of Speaking Our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation.

Congratulations to the three winners; we look forward to their upcoming projects to be published by Second Story Press.

For more information, click here.