Journalist and writer Brandi Morin wins 2024 Freedom to Read Award
Journalist and writer Brandi Morin has won the 2024 Freedom to Read Award.
Presented by the Writers' Union of Canada, the annual award recognizes work that is passionately supportive of the freedom to read.
Morin is a writer of Cree, Iroquois and French origin from Treaty 6 territories in Alberta. Her work has won multiple awards and has been featured in National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, CBC and The New York Times. Morin was recently announced as one of the readers for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
She was arrested, detained and charged on Jan. 10 while covering a police raid on an homeless encampment in Edmonton. Organizations like the Indigenous Journalists Association, Amnesty International, PEN Canada, the Canadian Association of Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, Journalists for Human Rights and the Coalition for Women in Journalism have all released statements about her arrest.
She is also the writer of memoir Our Voice of Fire, which recounts Morin's experience as a foster kid, runaway and survivor of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis. It follows her journey overcoming adversity to pursue justice and find her power though journalism.
"For so long, the truths of the Indigenous experience, for most, were stifled," she said in a panel on The Next Chapter.
"In my work as a journalist, I have worked to help bring that to the forefront. Silence is violence. Even when it comes to the horrors of the residential school system or the violence of colonization, most people had no awareness of that, including even in my own family, where my kokum was a survivor."
"They were even stifled to the majority of non-Indigenous people across this country as well. Silence equals the violence. Both have gone hand in hand."
Morin was nominated for the Freedom to Read Award by another member of Canada's writing and publishing community.
"Morin passionately tells the stories of people and events in Indigenous communities, creating visibility and voice for those often overlooked and silenced," reads the nomination. "She seeks out uncomfortable moments to be present, to tell those stories, requires courage, and for that, she deserves to be recognized."
The Freedom to Read Award is presented annually by The Writers' Union of Canada during Freedom to Read Week.
Toronto-based bookseller and event coordinator Farzana Doctor won the 2023 award.
Other past winners include Anjula Gogia, Ivan Coyote, David A. Robertson, Jael Richardson, Gary Geddes, Deborah Campbell, Mohamed Fahmy and Lawrence Hill.
Freedom to Read Week runs Feb. 18-24, 2024.
