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

Nelson Keane, Nachzehrer (Galleon, 2024)

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

Lisa Alward, Cocktail (Biblioasis, 2023)

Finalists:

Luke Francis Beirne, Blacklion (Baraka Books, 2023), Saint John

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

2023 Awards

Winner: Lee D. Thompson,

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

2022 Awards

Winner: Beth Powning,

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

2021 Awards

Winner: Riel Nason

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

2020 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.
	2019 Awards Winner: Raymond Frasier Through Sunlight and Shadows Pottersfield Press Finalists Meghan Rose Allen, Enid Strange. DCB/Cormorant. Susan White, Headliner. Acorn.
	2018 Awards Winner: Peter J. Clair Taapoategl & Pallet Chapel Street Editions Finalists Wayne Curtis, Home Coming. Pottersfield Press. M.T. Dohaney, Caplin Scull. Pottersfield Press.
	2017 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
	2016 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.