This message is sent on behalf of Donna Langille (donna.langille@ubc.ca) of UBC Okanagan.
In December 2015, Daniel Heath Justice began a Twitter campaign to share the names of Indigenous writers. The reason for his efforts was to: “… push back against the frequent assumptions that our literary history is any less complex, robust, or diverse than that of other peoples" (Daniel Heath Justice, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter?).
In solidarity with his efforts, Honouring Indigenous Writers is a yearly event to increase awareness and coverage of Indigenous literature.
This year, the organizing team has put together a schedule of free events and activities designed for virtual participation throughout the month of March 2022. The events include:
- Author readings by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm and Dallas Hunt, Joshua Whitehead, Kim Senklip Harvey, and more
- An interactive workshop and walk with Peter Morin, titled “Words to Give Back: Words that have lifted us up“
- Self-paced Weekly Wikipedia Challenges to increase the coverage of Indigenous authors
- Wikipedia training and drop-in Zoom sessions
- A presentation by Dr. Aubrey Hanson and Dr. Erin Spring on Books to Build on: Indigenous Literatures for Learning
- And a social media campaign on Twitter
These events and activities are free and open to anyone to participate. Please join us at our kickoff event and reading on March 7, 2022 and learn more about the other events we have planned! You can also read more at the HIW website.
We would also appreciate your support of the event by helping to promote it through your listservs, social media accounts, and other spaces to help raise awareness of Indigenous literature and engage in open community knowledge creation.
The event team has developed a number of social media assets in a variety of sizes for ease of sharing. The assets can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SE0a-45pOdjLIvUtXIKI7a7XUjOAtUxA?usp=sharing
Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions and thank you in advance for any support you can give in making this event a success. Thank you to event sponsors, the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies, UBC Library (Vancouver and Okanagan), UBC Public Humanities Hub (Vancouver and Okanagan), BCcampus, University of Calgary Libraries and Cultural Resources, and Indigenous Programs and Services UBC Okanagan.
Best,
Donna Langille on behalf of the Honoring Indigenous Writers Event Team
#HonouringIndigenousWriters