Monthly Archives: April 2021

Celebrate with this year’s nominees in the comfort of your home during our virtual Atlantic Book Awards festival May 6–13.

Stories that explore familial relationships have always resonated with readers. Join journalist and author Pauline Dakin (Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood) for a discussion on how some of this year’s nominated fiction titles captured beautiful and challenging family dynamics.

Featuring:

• Chris Benjamin (Boy with a Problem)
• Laura Best (Good Mothers Don’t)
• Bridget Canning (Some People’s Children)
• Alison Taylor (Aftershock: A Novel)

Presented in partnership with Halifax Public Libraries.

Monday, May 10, 7:00 pm ADT

Storytellers of Cape Breton

Register for this free event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Ilo2yfJEQW268cmXbDnnAQ

Cape Breton is home to a vibrant community of writers that have provided readers with an abundance of treasured novels. Learn how the island plays a role in the works of these three nominees:

• Lesley Crewe (The Spoon Stealer)
• Julie Curwin (The Appendage Formerly Known as Your Left Arm)
• Morgan Murray (Dirty Birds)

Moderated by author and Artistic Director of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival, Rebecca Silver Slayter.

Presented in partnership with the Cabot Trail Writers Festival and the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.

Wednesday, May 12, 7:00 pm ADT

Understanding Our Past: Exploring Nova Scotia’s history

Register for this free event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_–kBcFAUQNKhdmchfaQ3gA

Writers have historically played an essential role in helping us understand our past, allowing us to see who we are and how we got here. Author Lindsay Ruck (Amazing Black Atlantic Canadians: Inspiring stories of courage and achievement) will lead a discussion of this tradition through the lens of marginalized communities. Featuring:

• shalan joudry (Waking Ground)
• Tyler LeBlanc (Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion)
• Rebecca Rose (Before the Parade: A History of Halifax’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Communities, 1972–1984)

Presented in partnership with the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.

Tuesday, May 18, 7:00 pm ADT

Poetry & Prose: A discussion of craft

Register for this free event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3aw5zlcFQSGM5QIztGskqQ

Join us for a discussion on craft and how, or if, the approach changes when writing in different literary genres. Hosted by author Amanda Peters and featuring:

• Tammy Armstrong (Year of the Metal Rabbit)
• Afua Cooper (Black Matters)
• David Huebert (Humanimus)
• Anne Simpson (Speechless: A Novel)

Presented in partnership with the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.

The just-announced shortlist of nominees (now available in lovely poster format) comes thanks to 14 different three-person juries, one for each award. Thank you so much to each of these individuals, for volunteering their time and expertise to evaluate the books submitted to each award and to work together to come up with the shortlists. Read More →

Representing the best in Atlantic writing, illustration and publishing, the Atlantic Book Awards Society is pleased to announce the shortlists for the fourteen different book prizes that make up the 2021 Atlantic Book Awards. The nominated titles represent a wide range of books from Atlantic Canada—everything from hard-hitting non-fiction to illustrated children’s books to adult fiction, and a new poetry award created in 2020 by the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia in honour of the late celebrated African-Nova Scotian poet and teacher, Maxine Tynes.

Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction
Boy with a Problem by Chris Benjamin (Pottersfield Press)
Winter Road by Wayne Curtis (Pottersfield Press)
The Appendage Formerly Known as Your Left Arm by Julie Curwin (Boularderie Island Press)

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature
Annaka by Andre Fenton (Nimbus Publishing)
Keep This to Yourself by Tom Ryan (Albert Whitman & Company)
The Grey Sisters by Jo Treggiari (Penguin Teen)

Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing, Sponsored by Marquis Book Printing
At the Ocean’s Edge: A History of Nova Scotia to Confederation by Margaret Conrad (University of Toronto Press)
The Miramichi Fire: A History by Alan MacEachern (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
A Long Journey: Residential Schools in Labrador and Newfoundland by Andrea Procter (ISER Books)

Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association Best Atlantic-Published Book Award, Sponsored by Friesens Corporation
The Forager’s Dinner: Finding, harvesting, and preparing Newfoundland and Labrador’s edible plants by Shawn Dawson (Boulder Books)
Dirty Birds by Morgan Murray (Breakwater Books Ltd.)
Black Matters by Afua Cooper, with photographs by Wilfried Raussert (Roseway Publishing)

Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
Silver Hair and Golden Voice: Austin Willis, From Halifax to Hollywood by Ernest J. Dick (Nimbus Publishing)
Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion by Tyler LeBlanc (Goose Lane Editions)
Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys by Jennifer Thonhill-Verma (Nimbus Publishing)

Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award
Blood in the Water: A True Story of Revenge in the Maritimes by Silver Donald Cameron (Viking Canada)
Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion by Tyler LeBlanc (Goose Lane Editions)
Before the Parade: A History of Halifax’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Communities, 1972-1984 by Rebecca Rose (Nimbus Publishing)

Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction), presented by Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission and Cluett Insurance
Good Mothers Don’t by Laura Best (Nimbus Publishing)
The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe (Nimbus Publishing)
The Silence of the Vessel: A Novel by Brenda MacLennan-Dunphy (Pottersfield Press)

J. M. Abraham Poetry Award
Black Matters by Afua Cooper, with photographs by Wilfried Raussert (Roseway Publishing)
Humanimus by David Huebert (Palimpsest Press)
Waking Ground by shalan joudry (Gaspereau Press)

Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration
Byron Eggenschwiler, illustrator for The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt,
written by Riel Nason (Tundra Books)
Sydney Smith, illustrator for I Talk Like a River, written by Jordan Scott (Neal Porter Books)
Lauren Soloy, illustrator, for When Emily Was Small, written by Lauren Soloy (Tundra Books)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award – Fiction, sponsored by the family of John and Margaret Savage and Royden Trainor
The Appendage Formerly Known as Your Left Arm by Julie Curwin (Boularderie Island Press)
Dirty Birds by Morgan Murray (Breakwater Books Ltd.)
Aftershock: A Novel by Alison Taylor (HarperCollins)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award – Non-Fiction, sponsored by Weed Man Maritimes, Heritage House Law Office and I Love Renovations
Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion by Tyler LeBlanc (Goose Lane Editions)
The Dome Chronicles by Garry Leeson (Nevermore Press)
Capturing Crime by Carol Taylor (New World Publishing)

Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award
Year of the Metal Rabbit by Tammy Armstrong (Gaspereau Press)
Burden by Douglas Burnet Smith (University of Regina Press)
Waking Ground by shalan joudry (Gaspereau Press)

Robbie Robertson Dartmouth Book Award (Non-Fiction), sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Dartmouth
Blood in the Water: A True Story of Revenge in the Maritimes by Silver Donald Cameron (Viking Canada)
Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion by Tyler LeBlanc (Goose Lane Editions)
Peace by Chocolate: The Hadhad Family’s Remarkable Journey from Syria to Canada by Jon Tattrie (Goose Lane Editions)

Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award
Some People’s Children by Bridget Canning (Breakwater Books Ltd.)
Dirty Birds by Morgan Murray (Breakwater Books Ltd.)
Speechless by Anne Simpson (Freehand Books)

The 2021 Atlantic Book Festival and Awards will take place online with virtual author events happening May 6 to 12 and a virtual Awards Gala on May 13.

The 2021 Pioneer Award, going to someone from Nova Scotia who’s made a substantial contribution to the literary life of the region, will be announced when it’s awarded at the Gala.

The board of the non-profit Atlantic Book Awards Society is made up of representatives of the Atlantic Canadian book and writing community. The 2021 Atlantic Book Awards and Festival gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Canada Book Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage, CTV, Halifax Public Libraries and the sponsorship of Alliance Française Halifax and Chapters/Indigo/Coles.