Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize

The Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize recognizes the best book of fiction (novels or short story collections  - no anthologies, please) published by a New Brunswick resident each year. The $500 prize has been sponsored by Mrs. Dunster's since 2015.

Mrs. Dunster's is locally owned and operated by the Hyslop Family, 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.

2023 Shortlisted Titles


Valerie Sherrard, Standing on Neptune (DCB Cormorant, 2023), Miramichi

Lisa AlwardCocktail (Biblioasis, 2023), Fredericton

Luke Francis BeirneBlacklion (Baraka Books, 2023), Saint John

2022 Awards

Winner: Lee D. Thompson,

APastoral: A Mistopia

Corona/Samizdat


Finalists
Meghan Rose Allen, The Summer the School Burned Down. Independent.
Valerie Sherrard, A Bend in the Breeze. DCB Cormorant



2021 Awards

Winner: Beth Powning,

The Sister's Tale

Knopf Canada


Finalists
Amber McMillan, The Running Trees. Goose Lane.
Valerie Sherrard, Birdspell. DCB Cormorant





2020 Awards

Winner: Riel Nason

Waiting Under Water

Scholastic Canada


Finalists
Mark Anthony Jarman, Czech Techno, Anvil Press.
Kathleen Peacock, You Were Never Here. Harper Teen





2019 Awards

Winner: Sarah Xarar Murphy
Itzel I: A Tlatelolco Awakening
Guernica Editions

Finalists
Chris Eaton, Symphony No. 3. Book*hug Press.
Susan White, Fear of Drowning. Acorn Press.

2018 Awards

Winner: Raymond Frasier
Through Sunlight and Shadows
Pottersfield Press

Finalists
Meghan Rose Allen, Enid Strange. DCB/Cormorant.
Susan White, Headliner. Acorn.

2017 Awards

Winner: Peter J. Clair
Taapoategl & Pallet
Chapel Street Editions

Finalists
Wayne Curtis, Home Coming. Pottersfield Press.
M.T. Dohaney, Caplin Scull. Pottersfield Press.

2016 Awards

Winner: Kerry-Lee Powell
Willem de Kooning's Paintbrush
HarperCollins

Finalists
Roger Moore, Bistro. Self-published.
Riel Nason, All the Things We Leave Behind. Goose Lane

2015 Awards

Winner: Beth Powning
A Measure of Light
Knopf

Finalists
R.W. Gray, Entropic. Newest Press.​
Mark Anthony Jarman, Knife Party at the Hotel Europa. Goose Lane.

Judge

2023 - Donna Morrissey

Donna Morrissey has published seven nationally best-selling novels, plus a memoir, Pluck. She has received awards in Canada, the U.S. and England and her novel, Sylvanus Now was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize.

Donna’s fiction has been translated into several different languages. She was nominated for a Gemini for her script, The Clothesline Patch, and
her last novel, The Fortunate Brother, spent six weeks on the bestseller list, and won the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel of 2017.

Donna's latest new novel, Rage The Night, has been three weeks on the National bestseller list. 

2022 - Leslie Greentree

2021 - Richard Cumyn

2020 - Mark Sampson
2019 - Amy Jones
2018 - David Huebert
2017 - Angie Abdou
2016 - Rabindranath Maharaj
2015 - Lisa Moore

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