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Nova Scotia & Atlantic Book Award winners

Congratulations to the 2024 winners, announced on June 3 and 5, of the WFNS-administered Nova Scotia and Atlantic Book Awards!


Nova Scotia Book Awards

Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award

Karen Pinchin
Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas
(Knopf Canada)

Finalists

Sherri Aikenhead
Mommy Don’t: From Mother to Murderer: The True Story of Penny and Karissa Boudreau
(Nimbus Publishing)

Kelly Thompson
Still, I Cannot Save You: A Memoir of Sisterhood, Love, and Letting Go
(McClelland & Stewart)

A second congratulations to Karen Pinchin, whose Kings of Their Own Ocean also won the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Non-Fiction). Congratulations, too, to WFNS members strong>Amanda Peters, whose The Berry Pickers (HarperCollins Canada) won the Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction), and Michelle Wamboldt, whose Birth Road (Nimbus Publishing) won the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Fiction).

Jen Powley was posthumously awarded the George Borden Writing for Change Award for Making a Home: Assisted Living in the Community for Young Disabled People (Roseway Publishing).


Atlantic Book Awards

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Atlantic Canadian Children’s Literature​

Jack Wong
The Words We Share
(Annick Press)

Finalists

Alma Fullteron
The Journal of Anxious Izzy Parker
(Second Story Press)

Vicki Grant
A Green Velvet Secret
(Tundra Books)

George Paul
Kepmite’taqney Ktapekiaqn / Le chant d’honneur / The Honour Song
(Éditions Bouton d’or Acadie)

J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award​

Fawn Parker
Soft Inheritance
(Palimpsest Press)

Finalists

Joe Bishop
Indie Rock
(University of Alberta Press)

Matthew Hollett
Optic Nerve
(Brick Books)

Sadie McCarney
Your Therapist Says It’s Magical Thinking
(ECW Press)

Harry Thurston
Ultramarine
(Gaspereau Press)

Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award​

Michelle Porter
A Grandmother Begins the Story
(Viking Canada)

Finalists

Violet Browne
This is the House That Luke Built
(Goose Lane Editions)

Charlene Carr
Hold My Girl
(HarperCollins)

Amanda Peters
The Berry Pickers
(HarperCollins)

William Ping
Hollow Bamboo
(HarperCollins)

Congratulations, too, to members Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail, whose Freddie the Flyer (Tundra Books; coauthored by Fred Carmichael) won the inaugural Readers’ Choice Award, and Gloria Ann Wesley, whose body of work earned the Atlantic Legacy Award.

The full lists of winners are available on the Nova Scotia Book Awards website and the Atlantic Book Awards website.

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The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is based in Kjipuktuk, in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship,” which Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. The treaties do not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognize Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) title and establish the rules for an ongoing relationship between nations.

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Simultaneous Submissions

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) administers some programs (and special projects) that involve print and/or digital publication of ‘selected’ or ‘winning’ entries. In most cases, writing submitted to these programs and projects must not be previously published and must not be simultaneously under consideration for publication by another organization. Why? Because our assessment and selection processes depends on all submitted writing being available for first publication. If writing selected for publication by WFNS has already been published or is published by another organization first, copyright issues will likely make it impossible for WFNS to (re-)publish that writing.

When simultaneous submissions to a WFNS program are not permitted, it means the following:

  • You may not submit writing that has been accepted for future publication by another organization.
  • You may not submit writing that is currently being considered for publication by another organization—or for another prize that includes publication.
  • The writing submitted to WFNS may not be submitted for publication to another organization until the WFNS program results are communicated. Results will be communicated directly to you by email and often also through the public announcement of a shortlist or list of winners. Once your writing is no longer being considered for the WFNS program, you are free to submit it elsewhere.
    • If you wish to submit your entry elsewhere before WFNS program results have been announced, you must first contact WFNS to withdraw your entry. Any entry fee cannot be refunded.

Prohibitions on simultaneous submission do not apply to multiple WFNS programs. You are always permitted to submit the same unpublished writing to multiple WFNS programs (and special projects) at the same time, such as the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program, the Emerging Writers Prizes, the Jampolis Cottage Residency Program, the Message on a Bottle contest, the Nova Writes Competition, and any WFNS projects involving one-time or recurring special publications.

Recommended Experience Levels

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) recommends that participants in any given workshop have similar levels of creative writing and / or publication experience. This ensures that each participant gets value from the workshop⁠ and is presented with information, strategies, and skills that suit their career stage. The “Recommended experience level” section of each workshop description refers to the following definitions used by WFNS.

  • New writers: those with less than two years’ creative writing experience and/or no short-form publications (e.g., short stories, personal essays, or poems in literary magazines, journals, anthologies, or chapbooks).
  • Emerging writers: those with more than two years’ creative writing experience and/or numerous short-form publications.
  • Early-career authors: those with 1 or 2 book-length publications or the equivalent in book-length and short-form publications.
  • Established authors: those with 3 or 4 book-length publications.
  • Professional authors: those with 5 or more book-length publications.

Please keep in mind that each form of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and writing for children and young adults) provides you with a unique set of experiences and skills, so you might consider yourself an ‘established author’ in one form but a ‘new writer’ in another.

For “intensive” and “masterclass” creative writing workshops, which provide more opportunities for peer-to-peer feedback, the recommended experience level should be followed closely.

For all other workshops, the recommended experience level is just that—a recommendation—and we encourage potential participants to follow their own judgment when registering.

If you’re uncertain of your experience level with regard to any particular workshop, please feel free to contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca