2021 Atlantic Book Awards Winners

Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction 
Julie Curwin for The Appendage Formerly Known as Your Left Arm (Boularderie Island Press)
 
Ann Connor Brimer Award for Atlantic Canadian Children’s Literature
Tom Ryan for Keep This to Yourself  (Albert Whitman & Company)
 
Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing, sponsored by Marquis Book Printing
Andrea Procter for A Long Journey: Residential Schools in Labrador and Newfoundland (ISER Books)


Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association’s Best Atlantic-Published Book Award, Sponsored by Friesens Corporation
Breakwater Books for Dirty Birds by Morgan Murray
 
Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
Tyler LeBlanc for Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion (Goose Lane Editions)
 
Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award
Tyler LeBlanc for Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion (Goose Lane Editions)


Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction), presented by Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission and Cluett Insurance
Lesley Crewe for The Spoon Stealer (Nimbus Publishing)

“I want to say a big thank you to the Atlantic Book Awards and the Dartmouth Book Awards. It was a lovely moment for me, to be awarded with this special prize and I’m especially pleased it’s for The Spoon Stealer as it is my favourite book so far. I’m glad that other people liked it too! There are so many deserving authors in the Maritimes and I’m proud to call many of them my friends. I’d also like to thank the wonderful gang at Nimbus who have been so supportive over the years and a big thank you to my secret weapon, my editor, Penelope Jackson. She has always been my good luck charm, and I’d never be able to do this without her. And lastly, to my family, who love me whether I’m writing or not. ” – Lesley Crewe
 
J.M. Abraham Poetry Award
Afua Cooper for Black Matters, with photography by Wilfried Raussert (Roseway Publishing)
 
Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration
Sydney Smith for I Talk Like a River, written by Jordan Scott (Neal Porter Books)
 
Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Fiction), sponsored by the family of John and Margaret Savage and Royden Trainor
Alison Taylor for Aftershock (HarperCollins)
 
Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Non-Fiction), sponsored by Weed Man Maritimes, Heritage House Law Office and I Love Renovations
Garry Leeson for The Dome Chronicles (Nevermore Press)


Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award
Tammy Armstrong for Year of the Metal Rabbit (Gaspereau Press)

Robbie Robertson Dartmouth Book Award (Non-Fiction), presented by the Kiwanis Club of Dartmouth
Silver Donald Cameron (posthumously) for Blood on the Water: A True Story of Revenge in the Maritimes (Viking Canada)
 
Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award
Anne Simpson for Speechless (Freehand Books)