2024 Alberta Literary Awards Finalists Announced!
The Writers’ Guild of Alberta is excited to announce the finalists for the 2024 Alberta Literary Awards. Each year, the Alberta Literary Awards celebrate the highest standards of literary excellence from Alberta authors.
The WGA would like to send our congratulations to those whose work is among this year’s finalists! We look forward to celebrating your creativity and hard work, and we will do all we can to spread the word about the wonderful writing you did in 2023.
There will be Readings with the Finalists for the Alberta Literary Awards in Edmonton on May 5th and in Calgary on May 3rd.
You are also invited to attend the Alberta Literary Awards Gala in Edmonton on Saturday, June 8th, which takes place the same weekend as the WGA Conference: No Place Like Home.
Our juries deliberated on an overwhelming number of submissions to select the following 31 finalists in ten categories. Finalists represent excellence in literary work written by Alberta authors and published or created in 2022-23. We encourage you to check out these fantastic titles!
***Please Note: Finalists for the Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize and The City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize were announced separately by their respective cities.
The 2024 Alberta Literary Awards Finalists
R. Ross Annett Award for Children’s Literature (Chapter Books)
(Sponsored by Under the Arch Youth Foundation at The Calgary Foundation)
- Kate A. Boorman – Into the Sublime (McMillan/Henry Holt)
- Natasha Deen – The Signs and Wonders of Tuna Rashad (Running Press Kids)
- Dee Hahn – The Grave Thief (Puffin Canada)
Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction
(Sponsored by Scott Saxberg)
- Jessica Johns – Bad Cree (HarperCollins)
- Thomas Wharton – Book of Rain (Random House Canada)
- Deborah Willis – Girlfriend on Mars (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction
- David Laurence Jones – New World Dreams (Heritage House)
- Paul McKendrick – Scrubbing the Sky (Figure 1 Publishing)
- Alexandra Zabjek – We Need to do This (LCR Publishing)
Memoir Award
(Supported by Vivian Hansen)
- Cecile Beaulieu – Brother Broken (FriesenPress)
- Charlotte Bellows – The Definition of Beautiful (Freehand Books)
- Jennifer Bowering-Delisle – Micrographia (Gordon Hill Press)
Short Story Collection
- Astrid Blodgett – This is How You Start to Disappear (University of Alberta Press)
- Idman Nur Omar – Private Apartments (House of Anansi Press)
- Premee Mohamed – No one will come back for us (Undertow Publications)
Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Book of Poetry
(Sponsored by Stephan V. Benediktson)
- Alice Major – Knife on Snow (Turnstone Press)
- Natalie Meisner – It Begins in Salt (Frontenac House)
- Juleta Severson-Baker – Antecedent (Frontenac House)
Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama
- Caleigh Crow – There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death, or the Born Again Crow (Playwrights Canada Press)
- Mieko Ouchi – Burning Mom (Playwrights Canada Press)
- Josée Thibeault – La fille du facteur (Les Éditions du Blé)
James H. Gray Awards for Short Nonfiction
(Supported by Marilyn and Bob Stallworthy)
- paulo da costa – The Stones that Anchor Us (Queens Quarterly)
- Patti Edgar – Ascending in a Hotel Conference Room (The Dalhousie Review)
- Thomas Wharton – Cat Fox Neutrino (Hazlitt)
Howard O’Hagan Short Story Award
(Supported by the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society)
- Katherine Abbass – Fred (The Malahat Review)
- Astrid Blodgett – How to Read Water (University of Alberta Press)
- Ben Lof – The Care Bears (The Malahat Review)
Jon Whyte Memorial Unpublished Essay Award
(Supported by the Haynes Family – In Memory of Dr. Sterling Haynes)
- Antoinette Bekker – The Sensibilities of Dogs
- Marcello Di Cintio – Desconocido
- Julie Sedivy – Prosthesis
Our Thanks…
