The New Brunswick Book Awards 2024-25 Submissions open

Submissions for our tenth season are now open. Click "entry form" below, fill out the Google Doc, and send two print copies (unfortunately, no ebooks, at this time) to the address below. Books must be postmarked by December 1.

Eligibility criteria: books published in the 2024 calendar year by NB residents. Books can be submitted by the publisher or the author.

A NB resident is defined as a person living in the province for three of the last five years, and for more than 50% of each year, including 2024, the year of the award, and who has not claimed another province as their primary residence or claimed this book as eligible for a writing award in another province. For a co-written book to be eligible, at least one co-author must be a New Brunswick resident, and their name must appear on the cover.

Entry Form

New Brunswick Book Awards
c/o The Writers' Federation of NB
52 Amity Street
Moncton, NB  E1G 0S3

Queries: info@wfnb.ca

For the last ten years, The New Brunswick Book Awards (NBBA) has been an annual program celebrating the books of resident New Brunswick authors, in four categories: children's picture book, poetry book collection, nonfiction, and fiction.

New for 2024-25, the WFNB is accepting submissions for a fifth award to its NBBA program: Books for Young Readers (middle grade and young adult).

The NBBA is 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 NBBA program began as a partnership between the Writers’ Federation, which for nearly 40 years has passionately supported the development of home-grown writers at all stages of development, and The Fiddlehead, Canada’s oldest literary magazine, which has nurtured New Brunswick's literary culture for more than 75 years.

The Fiddlehead is no longer involved with the administration of the program, but they still remain a generous sponsor of The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize.

Check out our sponsors and read more about each category below, and read how to submit a book to the awards program.

The NBBA is now entering its tenth season, and 2025 will also mark the fortieth anniversary of the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick. The WFNB would like to increase and expand the reach of the NBBA. If you would like to help sponsor the awards or contribute in other ways financially to this worthy program, we would love to hear from you. Contact us at info@wfnb.ca.


For immediate release

The New Brunswick Book Awards announces judges for five awards - currently open to submissions


Moncton, NB, September 4, 2024 - The 10th annual New Brunswick Book Awards judges have been selected, and they will review submitted books for the year 2024. Now in its tenth season, the New Brunswick Book Awards is adding a fifth award to its roster which celebrates writing excellence for the previous award year. The Books for Young Readers award, generously sponsored by J.D. Irving Ltd., will be added to the list of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and children’s picture books.

The judges for 2024 are as follows:

*NEW* - Books for Young Readers Award, generously sponsored by J.D. Irving Ltd.

A.N. Sage


A.N. SAGE is a bestselling and award-winning author, known for her mystery and fantasy novels. With a lifelong fascination for the supernatural, she has channeled her imagination and creativity into crafting stories that transport readers to worlds filled with magic and intrigue. To date, Sage has written 23 novels across multiple genres. Her longest running young adult urban fantasy series spans 8 novels and a novella. The remainder of her work lies in cozy mystery and young adult paranormal mystery. Sage has one non-fiction title on the craft of writing a cozy mystery and is currently working on a children's picture book to be published in Spring 2025. 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, where she enjoys spending her free time immersed in books and exploring new television series. She shares her home with her husband and daughter, whose spirited personality often sparks new inspiration.

Mrs. Dunster’s Award for Fiction -

Michelle Butler Hallett


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.


Alice Kitts Memorial Award for Excellence in Children’s Writing -

Sarah Butland


SARAH BUTLAND  was born in Ontario, and lived in New Brunswick for more than fifteen years. She now resides at home in rural Nova Scotia. Butland started creating while still learning to walk and in the years to follow was able to put a writing utensil to paper to document her creations before they were completely lost. Many stories, attempts at novels and thousands of ideas later, Butland created Sending You Sammy, her first published children’s book. She has been independently published in a variety of genres including romance, non-fiction and mystery. She is a freelance writer, Social Media Marketer and Writing Coach along with being an avid reader and book reviewer. She finds time to follow her dream of being an author, and teaches others that they, too, can follow their dream.

The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize –

Margo Wheaton


MARGO WHEATON 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 the J.M. Abraham Award, The Gerald Lampert Award, the Fred Cogswell Award, and the Relit Award. Margo is an associate editor at The Dalhousie Review and works as a manuscript editor and writing coach.

Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick Nonfiction Award -

Mark Abley


MARK ABLEY is a nonfiction writer, poet, journalist and editor who recently moved to Gananoque, Ontario, from his longtime home in Montreal. 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.

The competition for the tenth annual New Brunswick Book Awards is now open. Traditionally published and self-published authors who have lived in the province for three of the last five years, including the award year (2024) are welcome to enter. The deadline for entries is December 1, 2024.

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 shortlisted nominees will be announced in early April, 2025, and the live awards ceremony will take place in Fredericton on Saturday, May 31 as part of WFNB’s annual writing festival, WordSpring.

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Special thanks to our 2024 Event and Program Sponsors


2023 Shortlisted Authors













Photos from the New Brunswick Book Awards live ceremony,

June 1, 2024, The Moncton Press Club


(Photos courtesy of Bus Twenty Studios)

What else is New at the WFNB?

Territorial Acknowledgement

The Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick acknowledges that the land on which we live, work and gather is the traditional unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and Mi’kmaq Peoples, and we honour the spirit of our ancestors’ Treaties of Peace and Friendship. 

"Writers' Federation of New Brunswick" is a registered non-profit organization. New Brunswick, Canada. 


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