2023 has begun! This is a very special year for Kegedonce Press: It’s our 30th anniversary! The press began back in 1993 with the publication of My Heart is a Stray Bullet by founder and managing editor Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm.
Kateri founded Kegedonce Press as a publishing house that would feel welcoming to Indigenous authors, especially those publishing for the first time. As a dedicated Indigenous press, part of our mission is to preserve Indigenous voices as they are, even when it means going against some of the unspoken expectations of the publishing industry—we see this as an act of decolonizing. And we see Indigenous literatures for what they are: not a single category, but world literatures encompassing all categories and genres.
In the past 30 years, we have published works by some of the most widely known contemporary Indigenous writers in Canada, including Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler, Joanne Arnott, Cherie Dimaline, Marilyn Dumont, Louise Bernice Halfe, D.A. Lockhart, Bomgiizhik Isaac Murdoch, Aaron Paquette, Sharron Proulx-Turner, Gregory Scofield, and Richard Van Camp, among many others.
In August of 2022, the United Nations declared the Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022 to 2032). The U.N. recognizes that it is now more important than ever to raise awareness and act to preserve Indigenous languages to save them from extinction.
Kegedonce Press has published several bilingual books in Anishinaabemowin and English, as well as many others that are language-inclusive; that is, they include words and phrases in Indigenous languages, including Anishinabemowin, Cree, Lenape and others.
We have several events planned for 2023, including monthly features and sales of our bilingual and language-inclusive titles. Each month we will also spotlight one of our amazing authors and the titles they published with us.
And, who knows, there may be a few other fun happenings over the course of the year. You’re invited to join the celebration! Check in with us on Facebook and Instagram, and enjoy our author reading videos on YouTube.
Mno shki bboon! (Happy new year!)