The Writers’ Guild of Alberta is pleased to reveal the winners of the 2016 Alberta Literary Awards. More than 120 attended the 2016 Alberta Literary Awards Wine and Cheese Gala, part of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s 2016 Calgary Conference, Creativity and Happiness. This celebration marked the 34th anniversary of the Alberta Literary Awards and brought together writers from across Alberta. The Alberta Literary Awards were created by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta in 1982 to recognize excellence in writing by Alberta authors. This year, jurors deliberated over 250 submissions to select 25 finalists in eight categories. The Writers’ Guild of Alberta is the largest provincial writers’ organization in Canada, and was formed in 1980 to provide a meeting ground and collective voice for the writers of the province. Our mission is to inspire, connect, support, encourage, and promote writers and writing, to safeguard the freedom to write and to read, and to advocate for the well-being of writers. Congratulations to all of this year’s winners! Watch the video played at the Alberta Literary Awards Gala here. (Our thanks to this year's WGA summer intern, Rachel Wieringa, for producing the video for us!)
2016 Alberta Literary Awards Winners
R. Ross Annett Award for Children’s Literature (Supported by the Under the Arch Youth Foundation at The Calgary Foundation)- Kate Boorman (Edmonton) – Winterkill, Abrams/Amulet
- Bradley Somer (Calgary) – Fishbowl, St. Martin’s/Raincoast
- Andrew Nikiforuk (Calgary) – Slick Water: Fracking and One Insider’s Stand Against the World’s Most Powerful Industry, Greystone
- Beth Graham (Edmonton) – The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble, Playwrights Canada Press
- Marilyn Dumont (Edmonton) – The Pemmican Eaters, ECW Press
- Jane Harris (Lethbridge) – “The Unheard Patient,” Alberta Views
- Thomas Wharton (Edmonton) – “Filters,” FreeFall
- Elizabeth Withey (Edmonton) – “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
- Greg Hollingshead
[…] Event too place in lovely old MacDonald Hall at SAIT in Calgary. A full house. Winners list: Kate Boorman, Thomas Wharton, Jane Harris, Marilyn Dumont, Elizabeth Withey, Beth Graham, Andrew Nikiforuk, and Bradley Somer. Greg Hollingshead received the WGA Golden Pen Award for an outstanding Alberta writer. FS. […]