A Samson Cree Nation youth has won a national competition for Indigenous child authors.
Vienna Swampy didn’t see her culture or community represented in many stories, so she decided to write her own.
“I didn't see a lot of books having Cree representations and I thought it would be cool if I wrote some,” said the 13-year-old.
“Growing up, I always wanted to see that, and I thought it would be cool for younger kids in the community to actually see someone representing them in books.”
Hosted by Voices of Future Generations, the 2025 Call for Indigenous Child Authors invited youth across the country to submit stories highlighting the cultural heritage of their families and communities.
Vienna’s book, The Land Before Us, tells the story of an 11-year-old girl named Nimisew who wants to limit deforestation in her community and plant more trees.
When she learned she had won gold in the competition, Vienna and her family were thrilled.
“I feel like opportunities like this are such a good experience for the youth to see that anything is possible,” said Kristen Swampy, her mother.
“That if they put their mind to it, (if) they put the hard work in, they can achieve all their goals.”
Vienna hopes to inspire young authors and sees this experience as a first step.
“I can learn from this book and feel like I could write better stories in the future,” she said.
Vienna has been writing stories with friends since she was 10 years old and enjoys reading classic novels with deeper meanings, such as Animal Farm and Huckleberry Finn.
In her free time, she enjoys track and field and playing the guitar, taking weekly lessons since age nine.
For the future, Vienna hopes to enter more writing contests with Voices of Future Generations and continue developing her craft.
The book will be available in print and PDF later this fall.
You can learn more about Voices of Future Generations on their website and read more stories from other child authors.
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