Zegaabam: Indigenous Horror Fiction

You never know what’s hunting you, while you’re hunting it...

Eleven of the deadliest writers from across Turtle Island have crafted stories for you calculated to chill, thrill, and kindle your worst imaginings. Zegaajimo brings together tales of monsters and the macabre, terrifying transformations, strange places and unexpected wonders. These stories warn of billionaires with hidden intentions, spark vigilance for ominous figures that might appear on doorsteps, and caution you to let the river keep what belongs to it.

But these stories of supernatural settings and dreadful deeds are more than speculative fiction, they are also reminders that monsters are already in our midst, that the known can be just as frightening as the unknown, and that the slightest mistakes can have dire consequences. Read these tales alone to yourself, or better yet share them with friends--especially around a fire on a dark winter’s night, when all you can hear is the cracking of branches, and the wind in the trees is as cold as your sweat.

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is a member of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, on the Saugeen Peninsula in Ontario. Kateri is an Assistant Professor, teaching Creative Writing, Indigenous Literatures and Oral Traditions in the English Department at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. She has taught creative writing and Indigenous literatures at the University of Manitoba, the Banff Centre’s Aboriginal Arts Program, and the En’owkin International School of Writing in partnership with the University of Victoria. Her publications encompass poetry, fiction, non-fiction, radio plays, television and film, libretti, graphic novels, and spoken word. Her teaching and creative work is firmly decolonial, a practice of cultural resurgence, affirmation and survivance. She is a recipient of a REVEAL Indigenous Arts Award for writing, her 2015 book of short stories, The Stone Collection, was a finalist for the Sarton Literary Book Awards, and her collaborative recording A Constellation of Bones was a nominee for a 2008 Canadian Aboriginal Music Award. Kateri was the 2011-2012 Poet Laureate for Owen Sound and North Grey. She founded and coordinated the first Honouring Words: International Indigenous Authors Celebration Tour in 2003 and initiated and was a co-organizer for the first Indigenous Comics Symposium in 2021. She is the founder, publisher, and art director for Kegedonce Press. (Re)Generation: The Poetry of Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, selected and edited by Dallas Hunt, was released in August 2021. She is currently completing work on a new collection of poetry and a collection of humourous short stories.

Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler is the author of Ghost Lake (2020, Kegedonce Press), a collection of short horror and mystery fiction which won the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award and of its companion volume, Wrist (2016, Kegedonce Press). He is co-editor of Bawaajigan - Stories of Power, a dream-themed anthology of Indigenous writers (Exile Editions). He is an artist and filmmaker who works in a variety of mediums including audio and video, and drawing and painting. Nathan is first-place winner of an Aboriginal Writing Challenge, and recipient of a Hnatyshyn Reveal award for literature, he has an MFA in Creative Writing (UBC), BFA in Integrated Media (OCAD), and BA in English Literature and Native Studies (Trent). His writing is published in various magazines, blogs, and anthologies. He is two-spirit, Jewish, Anishinaabe, and member of Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation. Originally from Ontario, he currently resides in Vancouver.