2025 Alberta Literary Award Winners Announced!
The Writers’ Guild of Alberta is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Alberta Literary Awards. This year’s award winners were announced at and in-person gala in Calgary on June 6th.
The winner of the Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize was announced in May as part of the Edmonton Arts Prizes.
This celebration marked the 43rd 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.
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 read, and to advocate for the well-being of writers.
For more information, please contact the Writers’ Guild of Alberta by email at [email protected].
Our juries deliberated on hundreds of submissions to select winners in the following categories. Thank you to our jourors for the 2025 Alberta Literary Awards: Kendall Bistretzan, Astrid Blodgett, Sharon Budnarchuk, K.R. Byggdin, Esmeralda Cabral, Cobra Collins, Kate Couture, Harshal Desai, Candas Jane Dorsey, Ruth DyckFedherau, Ashley Farrelly, Paige Feurer, Kate Finegan, Ashley Holloway, Yolande House, Ellen Kartz, Dawn MacDonald, Andrew MacPherson, Tariq Malik, Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail, Jeff Miller, Fawnda Mithrush, Murgatroyd Monaghan, Suzanne Norman, Tyler Perry, Karen Press, Sandra Ridley, Lori D. Roadhouse, Mariah Schuurman, Elisabeth Shenher, Nancy Tillberg, Cristy Watson, and John Wickham.
Finalists represent excellence in literary work written by Alberta authors and published or created in 2023-24.
The winners of the 2025 Alberta Literary Awards are:
The 2025 Alberta Literary Awards Winners
R. Ross Annett Award for Children’s Literature (Illustrated)
(Sponsored by Under the Arch Youth Foundation at The Calgary Foundation)
- This Land is a Lullaby (Orca Books) –Tonya Simpson (WINNER)
- What to Bring (Owl Kids) – Lorna Shultz Nicholson
- The Only Way to Make Bread (Tundra Books) – Cristina Quintero
James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction
(Supported by Marilyn and Bob Stallworthy)
- “In the Footsteps of Migrants Who Never Made It” (The Walrus) – Marcello Di Cintio (WINNER)
- “Green Rivers Louching” (The Prairie Journal) – Myrna Garanis
- “War For Drugs” (Maclean’s) – Omar Mouallem
Howard O’Hagan Short Story Award
(Supported by the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society)
- “Gusher” (Hexagon) – E.C. Dorgan (WINNER)
- “Rat King” (The Dalhousie Review) – Nicole Boyce
- “The Triller” (Grain) – Ben Lof
Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Book of Poetry
(Sponsored by The Benediktson Family)
- Invisible Lives (University of Calgary Press) – Cristalle Smith (WINNER)
- What Kind of Daughter? (Frontenac House) – Rayanne Haines
- Attic Rain (NeWest Press) – Samantha Jones
Jon Whyte Memorial Unpublished Essay Award
(Supported by the Haynes Family – In Memory of Dr. Sterling Haynes)
- “Laid Bear” – Lareina Abbott (WINNER)
- “Grapeful” – Katherine Abbass
- “Threads of The Night Watch” – Diana Davidson
Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama
- Ministry of Grace (Scirocco Drama) – Tara Beagan (WINNER)
- Eden – Fran Kimmel
- The Resurrection of Dottie Reed – Nicole Moeller
Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction
(Sponsored by Scott Saxberg)
- All Our Ordinary Stories (Arsenal Pulp Press) – Teresa Wong (WINNER)
- To See What He Saw (Figure1 Publishing) – Patricia Cucman and Stanley Munn
- Here After: A Memoir (Zibby Books) – Amy Lin
Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction
(Sponsored by the University of Calgary’s Calgary Distinguished Writers Program)
- I Hope This Finds You Well (HarperCollins) – Natalie Sue (WINNER)
- An Astonishment of Stars (ECW Press) – Kirti Bhadresa
- The Game of Giants (Freehand Books) – Marion Douglas
Memoir Award
(Supported by Vivian Hansen, Toby Roch, and Arnold Hansen)
- All Our Ordinary Stories (Arsenal Pulp Press) – Teresa Wong (WINNER)
- Here After (Zibby Books) – Amy Lin
- Linguaphile (Farrar Strauss, & Giroux) – Julie Sedivy
Our Thanks…
