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Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize
 The Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize recognizes the best book of fiction (novels or short story collections by a single author) published by a New Brunswick resident each year.
Mrs. Dunster's has been our generous sponsor of this $500 award since 2015. Purchased by Blair and Rosalyn Hyslop in June 2014, Mrs. Dunster's sells donuts and other baked goods across the Maritime provinces and New England. And while the business may have grown over the years, the products produced by Mrs. Dunster's in Sussex still carry that homemade taste — the same way Mrs. Dunster would have made them. 2025 Awards
Judge's Comments: Brave, almost brazen fiction built with psychological and structural depth. The duet of first-person narrators (think Wuthering Heights) frames this journey of a story well. I frequently question narrative POV choices when reading novels; here, multiple first-person works well and sets up questions, expectations, and subversions of realities. I often needed to take a break from Nachzehrer, (Nahk -ZEER- AR), just to give myself time to chew on what I'd read ... and to shake off the heebie-jeebies. By turns terrifying and beautiful, sometimes both at once, Nachzehrer (Nahk -ZEER- AR), is a deep study of war and evil's toll, of perhaps tall tales, of ghouls literal and figurative, and of empathy, nudging us and then shoving us to consider what it means to be human in even the most dire circumstances. Finalists: Mark Blagrave Felt, (Cormorant Books), St. Andrews Vanessa C. Hawkins, A Child to Cry Over, (CSG Publishing House), St. George 2024 Awards
Finalists: Luke Francis Beirne, Blacklion (Baraka Books, 2023), Saint John Valerie Sherrard, Standing on Neptune (DCB Cormorant, 2023), Miramichi 2023 Awards
APastoral: A Mistopia Corona/Samizdat Judge's comments: A sleepy sheep wakes to a lingering sense of injustice. His first target is a rooster. And with that, we are swept into a ridiculous, rollicking read, a biting satire of penal systems and performative justice that skewers its victims and their advocates as cleanly as it does the authors of a system that would surgically insert the brains of convicts into farm animals. Lee D. Thompson’s writing is propulsive and inventive, bursting with energy, wit, and silliness. In his hands, we embrace the absurdity of serial killers in swine, of farm justice aided and abetted by goats and border collies. We cheer on Bones’ integration of his human and ovine selves as much as we do his mad dash for freedom. Apastoral is a wild and joyful ride – readers will never pass a sheep again without checking for a purse. Finalists 2022 Awards
The Sister's Tale Knopf Canada Judge's Comments: One of the characters in The Sister’s Tale builds miniature replicas of some of the grand houses in the fictional community of Pleasant Valley, New Brunswick. Similarly, the novel itself, set in the late 1880s, is a meticulously rendered imagining of one household at a pivotal point in the province’s social and legal evolution. Balanced and precise, the prose ushers the reader into a bygone world that couldn’t feel more current or more urgent. Finalists 2021 Awards
Waiting Under Water Scholastic Canada Judge's Comments: Riel Nason's Waiting under Water is nothing short of devastating. Right from its opening chapter, Nason pulls us into the incredible voice of her protagonist, Hope, a girl who loves her hometown even as she faces the possibility of having to leave it behind. This book may be labeled YA, but Mom and Dad will definitely want to filch this one from the kids once they're done with it. A touching, funny, satisfying read from top to bottom. Finalists 2020 Awards
| Judge2025 - Michelle Butler Hallett2024 - Donna Morrissey2023 - Leslie Greentree2022 - Richard Cumyn2021 - Mark Sampson TESTIMONIAL When I submitted my middle-grade novel Waiting Under Water to publishers back in 2018, I was very fortunate to have three good offers. But there was one publisher that was my irresistible choice: Scholastic. SCHOLASTIC of book fair fame wanted to publish my book! It felt like an extra amazing accomplishment that combined my own fond childhood memories of school book fair shopping with my (then) present-day reality of my own children wandering into their school book fair and seeing my book! Anyhow, now let's cue up some dramatic music. My pub date was May 5, 2020. Due to Covid, schools in NB and elsewhere were closed by then. Closed schools meant no school book fairs. Public events were just reaching the point of completely disappearing, which meant no book launch. Scholastic does of course have distribution to regular book stores, large and small, but not as widely as many. Also, that pub date was about the worst as far as ordering or shipping as no one had the book in stock before everything shut down, and then no one was ordering anything, etc, etc, ... it was like the book came out and was just tossed into the abyss. But, enough with the woe is me, as in the whole scheme of Covid that was the teeny tiniest of dramas. Still, as a writer, it felt blech. That whole time period was blech writing-wise. Except for one little bright spot: The New Brunswick Book Awards. I was almost more thrilled to be nominated for the Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Award than I had been to be nominated for anything before. And in this case it wasn't the validation of the judge that made me so excited, it was the promotion that the awards provided. FINALLY there was a legitimate reason to mention and promote my invisible book online. It was news that could be shared. (Believe me, the one thing I learned early on with social media book promo is that your only posts after the initial few of hey-look-new-book-here should start with "Thank you to ..." ) It was New Brunswick news too, local content news. And an event to invite people to! (online during covid of course) It was a reason for excitement and celebration. My eventual win was of course exciting too and a nice reason for round 2 of the thank-you posts. So, I'm sure all that was a bit rambling, especially for a writer, but the NB Book Awards are SO IMPORTANT. People need to know that good stuff is being written HERE by people who live HERE. I cannot count the endless times that I have been told here at home that someone loves one of my books and then that I don't seem like a "local writer". WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? I am a local writer if I live local. As in, in NB. Like lots of other NB writers. Good writers. And the NB Book Awards remind people of that.” RIEL NASON, TWO-TIME AWARD WINNER for Waiting Under Water, (Mrs. Dunster’s Fiction, 2020) 2020 and Disaster at the Highland Games (Alice Kitts award for Picture Books, 2021) |
Nelson Keane, Nachzehrer 
Lisa Alward, Cocktail 
Winner: Lee D. Thompson,
Winner: Beth Powning,
Winner: Riel Nason
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