Media Release – 2018 Alberta Literary Awards Shortlist

For Immediate Release:

2018 ALBERTA LITERARY AWARDS SHORTLIST  

The Writers’ Guild of Alberta is excited to announce the finalists for the 2018 Alberta Literary Awards. Each year, the Alberta Literary Awards recognize and celebrate the highest standards of literary excellence from Alberta authors.

Winners will be announced and awards presented at the Alberta Literary Awards Gala on June 2, 2018 in the Imperial Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Calgary.

The WGA would like to send hearty congratulations to those whose work is on this year’s Alberta Literary Awards shortlists! 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 2017. Our awards celebration is not just one night; it is a full and robust season of honouring and “getting to know” these authors and their amazing work. Shortlist reading events will be held this spring in Edmonton on May 6 and in Calgary on May 16.

Our juries deliberated on more than 260 submissions to select the following 24 finalists in eight categories. Finalists represent excellence in literary work written by Alberta authors and published or created in 2017. We encourage you to check out these fantastic titles! 

The 2018 Alberta Literary Awards Shortlist

R. Ross Annett Award for Children’s Literature (Chapter Books)  

• Sarah Everett (Edmonton) – Everyone We’ve Been,  Knopf / Penguin Random House
• Alex Lyttle (Calgary) – From Ant to Eagle, Central Avenue Publishing
• Lorna Schultz Nicholson (Edmonton) – Bent Not Broken: Madeline & Justin, Clockwise Press

James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction

• Sid Marty (Lundbreck) – “How I Did Not Try to Kill Andrew Suknaski,” Alberta Views
• Sadia Masud (Edmonton) – “Taken Over By the West,” Glass Buffalo
• Roberta Rees (Calgary) – “Evie’s Massage Parlour,” Inanna Publications and Education Inc.

Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story

• Norma Dunning (Edmonton) – “Elipsee,” University of Alberta Press
• Igpy Kin (Calgary) – “Not Even a Mouse,” Loft on Eighth
• Deborah Willis (Calgary) – “The Last One to Leave,” Hamish Hamilton Canada / Penguin Random House

Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry

• Benjamin Hertwig (Edmonton) – Slow War, McGill-Queen’s University Press
• Lisa Martin (Edmonton) – Believing is not the same as Being Saved, University of Alberta Press
• Joshua Whitehead (Calgary) – full-metal indiqueer, Talonbooks

Jon Whyte Memorial Essay Award

• Jennifer Delisle (Edmonton) – “Passage”
• Alycia Pirmohamed (Calgary) – “How to Be a Young Muslim Girl in Post-9/11 Canada”
• Cynthia Scott Wandler (Morinville) – “Things You Can’t Do With a Broken Left Arm”

Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama

• Geoffrey Simon Brown (Calgary) – The Circle
• Karen Hines (Calgary) – Crawlspace
• Nicole Moeller (Edmonton) – The Preacher, The Princess, and a Crow

Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction

• Stephen Bown (Canmore) – Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on Bering’s Great Voyage to Alaska, Douglas & McIntyre
• Bernadette McDonald (Banff) – Art of Freedom: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka, Rocky Mountain Books
• Chris Turner (Calgary) – The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands, Simon and Schuster Canada

Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction

• Kimmy Beach (Red Deer) – Nuala: A Fable, University of Alberta Press
• Suzette Mayr (Calgary) – Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall, Coach House Books
• Deborah Willis (Calgary) – The Dark and Other Love Stories, Hamish Hamilton Canada / Penguin Random House

Our Gratitude..

The Writers’ Guild of Alberta gratefully acknowledges the supporters and sponsors of our 2017 Alberta Literary Awards:

Sponsors:

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
Stephan V. Benediktson
Under the Arch Youth Foundation

Supporters:

Nicole Duley
Vanna Tessier and Guy Tessier
Tony Johnson
Aritha van Herk
WGA Board of Directors