Shortlisted Titles Announced for the 2024 New Brunswick Book Awards

March 21, 2025 – The Writers' Federation of New Brunswick (WFNB) has announced the shortlisted titles for the 10th annual New Brunswick Book Awards. The winners will be revealed at an awards ceremony on Saturday, May 31, as part of WFNB’s annual WordSpring writing festival in Fredericton. The program will celebrate books published in the 2024 calendar year in the poetry, fiction, nonfiction and for the first time, books for young readers categories. The finalists are as follows:

Mrs. Dunster’s Award for Fiction
Judge:  Michelle Butler Hallett is an award-winning novelist and a disabled person who writes about violence, evil, love, and grace. She is the author of Constant Nobody, This Marlowe, deluded your sailors, Sky Waves, Double-blind, and The Shadow Side of Grace. A comically awkward history nerd, Butler Hallett lives in St John's, Newfoundland.

SPONSOR: MRS. DUNSTER’S INC.

Mark Blagrave Felt, Cormorant Books, St. Andrews

Nelson Keane Nachzehrer, Galleon, Saint-Philippe

Vanessa C. Hawkins, A Child to Cry Over, CSG Publishing House, St. George

Books for Young Readers Award
Judge: Inessa Sage is a bestselling and award-winning author of 23 novels across multiple genres, known for her mystery and fantasy novels. Winner of the Firebird award for best young adult novel, Sage adores stories for younger audiences that capture and intrigue the reader. Outside of writing, she works as a book coach and cover designer. A.N. Sage resides in Toronto, Canada.

SPONSOR: JD IRVING, LTD.

Bea Waters, Project Human (Almandel Entertainment), Fredericton

Valerie Sherrard, An Unbalanced Force (DCB Cormorant), Miramichi;

Odette Barr, Colleen Landry and Beth Weatherbee, Follow the Goose Butt to Prince Edward Island (Acorn Press), Petit-Cap; illustrated by Odette Barr

The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize
Judge: Margo Wheaton lives in Bedford, NS, and is the author of Rags of Night in Our Mouths (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022) and Wild Green Light (Pottersfield Press, 2021), a book she co-authored with David Adams Richards. Her debut collection The Unlit Path Behind the House received the Fred Kerner Award from the Canadian Authors Association and was shortlisted for several others.

SPONSOR: THE FIDDLEHEAD magazine

Matthew Gwathmey, Family Band (Porcupine’s Quill); Fredericton

Gerald Arthur Moore, Flak Jacket (NON Publishing); Moncton

Michael Pacey, Van Gogh’s Grasshopper (Pottersfield Press); Fredericton

Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick Nonfiction Award
Judge: Mark Abley lives in Gananoque, Ontario, and is a nonfiction writer, poet, journalist and editor. Among his nonfiction books are Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages; The Organist: Fugues, Fatherhood, and a Fragile Mind; and Strange Bewildering Time: Istanbul to Kathmandu in the Last Year of the Hippie Trail. In 2024 Stonehewer Books published an updated edition of his creative nonfiction book Conversations with a Dead Man: Indigenous Rights and the Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott.

SPONSOR: THE BRENNAN FAMILY, on behalf of the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick

C. Ted Behne, James W. Wheaton, Keith Helmuth, Daryl Hunter, Nicholas N. Smith, Tappan Adney: From Birchbark Canoes to Indigenous Rights, (Goose Lane Publishing and Chapel Street Editions), Woodstock

Margaret Augustine and Lauren Beck, Mitji – Let’s Eat! Mi’kmaq Recipes from Sikniktuk (Nimbus Publishing), Sackville

Donald J. Savoie, Speaking Truth to Canadians About Their Public Service, (McGill-Queens University Press), Moncton

The New Brunswick Book Awards are open to traditionally published and self-published authors who have lived in the province for three of the last five years, including the award year.

The awards program is administered by the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick (WFNB), which for 40 years has passionately supported the development of home-grown writers at all stages of development. The live awards ceremony will take place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Fredericton on May 31, as part of WFNB’s annual writing festival, WordSpring.

The awards ceremony on May 31 from 6 pm to 9 pm is a free, public event. Hosted by Vanessa Vander Valk, host of CBC radio’s Shift, the evening will include nibbles and a cash bar, with reception entertainment provided by singer/songwriter Catherine Kennedy. The guest speaker for the evening will be Ali Hassan, comedian and host of CBC’s Canada Reads and CBC’s Laugh out Loud.