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J.M. Abraham
Atlantic Poetry Award

One prize ($2,000) is awarded each year for a book of poetry that was written by a full-time resident of Atlantic Canada and published or distributed for the first time in Canada in the year prior to the submission deadline. Additional finalists each receive $250.

The Atlantic Poetry Prize was established in 1998 through the combined efforts of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, poets, publishers, and post-secondary institutions, who raised funds to annually honour the best book of poetry by an Atlantic Canadian. In 2014, the award was renamed the J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award after the legacy of Father Joseph Murray Abraham.

Click covers for more information.

Clare Goulet
Graphis scripta / writing lichen
(Gaspereau Press)

Annick MacAskill
Votive
(Gaspereau Press)

Johanna Skibsrud
Medium
(Bookhug Press)

Bren Simmers
The Work
(Gaspereau Press)

Douglas Walbourne-Gough
Island
(Goose Lane Editions)

2024 Winner

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

2024 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)

2024

Winner

Fawn Parker
Soft Inheritance
(Palimpsest Press)

Finalist

Joe Bishop
Indie Rock
(University of Alberta Press)

Finalist

Matthew Hollett
Optic Nerve
(Brick Books)

Finalist

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

Finalist

Harry Thurston
Ultramarine
(Gaspereau Press)

2023

Winner

Nanci Lee
Hsin
(Brick Books)

Finalist

Luke Hathaway
The Affirmations
(Biblioasis)

Finalist

Annick MacAskill
Shadow Blight
(Gaspereau Press)

2022

Winner

Alyda Faber
Poisonous If Eaten Raw
(Goose Lane Editions)

Finalist

Triny Finlay
Myself a Paperclip
(Goose Lane Editions)

Finalist

Rebecca Salazar
Sulphurtongue
(McClelland & Stewart)

2021

Winner

Afua Cooper
Black Matters
photography by Wilfried Raussert
(Roseway Publishing)

Finalist

David Huebert
Humanimus
(Palimpsest Press)

Finalist

shalan joudry
Waking Ground
(Gaspereau Press)

2020

Winner

Lucas Crawford
Belated Bris of the Brainsick
(Nightwood Editions)

Finalist

Tammy Armstrong
Year of the Metal Rabbit
(Gaspereau Press)

Finalist

Anne Compton
Smallholding
(Fitzhenry & Whiteside)

2019

Winner

Alison Smith
this kind of thinking does no good
(Gaspereau Press)

Finalist

Basma Kavanagh
Ruba’iyat for the Time of Apricots
(Frontenac House)

Finalist

Annick MacAskill
No Meeting Without Body
(Gaspereau Press)

2018

Winner

Julia McCarthy
All the Names Between
(Brick Books)

Finalist

Allan Cooper
Everything We’ve Loved Comes Back to Find Us
(Gaspereau Press)

Finalist

Alison Dyer
I’d Write the Sea Like a Parlour Game
(Killick Press)

2017

Winner

Jennifer Houle
The Back Channels
(Signature Editions)

Finalist

Margo Wheaton
The Unlit Path Behind the House
(McGill-Queen’s University Press)

Finalist

Patrick Woodcock
You can’t bury them all
(ECW Press)

2016

Winner

Sue Goyette
The Brief Reincarnation of a Girl
(Gaspereau Press)

Finalist

Phillip Crymble
Not Even Laughter
(Salmon Poetry)

Finalist

John Wall Barger
The Book of Festus
(Palimpsest Press)

2015

Winner

Susan Paddon
Two Tragedies in 429 Breaths
(Brick Books)

Finalist

Brian Bartlett
Ringing Here & There: A Nature Calendar: Poetry and Nature Writing
(Fitzhenry & Whiteside)

Finalist

Sylvia D. Hamilton
And I Alone Escaped To Tell You
(Gaspereau Press)

2014

Winner

Don Domanski
Bite Down Little Whisper
(Brick Books)

Finalist

Mary Dalton
Hooking
(Signal Editions)

Finalist

Sue Goyette
Ocean
(Gaspereau Press)

2013

Winner

Lesley Choyce
I’m Alive. I Believe in Everything.
(Breton Books)

Finalist

Carole Glasser Langille
Church of the Exquisite Panic: The Ophelia Poems
(Pedlar Press)

Finalist

George Murray
Whiteout
(ECW Press)

2012

Winner

Sue Goyette
outskirts
(Brick Books)

Finalist

Warren Heiti
Hydrologos
(Pedlar Press)

Finalist

Anne Simpson
Is
(McClelland & Stewart)

2011

Winner

John Steffler
Lookout
(McClelland & Stewart)

Finalist

Douglas Burnet Smith
Learning To Count
(Frontenac House)

Finalist

Johanna Skibsrud
I Do Not Think That I Could Love A Human Being
(Gaspereau Press)

2010

Winner

Tonja Gunvaldsen Klaassen
Lean-To
(Gaspereau Press)

Finalist

Anne Compton
Asking Questions Indoors and Out
(Fitzhenry & Whiteside)

Finalist

Zachariah Wells
Track & Trace
(Biblioasis)

2009

Winner

Brent MacLaine
Shades of Green
(Acorn Press)

Finalist

Sue Sinclair
Breaker
(Brick Books)

Finalist

Alan R. Wilson
Sky Atlas
(Fitzhenry & Whiteside)

2008

Winner

Don Domanski
All Our Wonder Unavenged
(Brick Books)

Finalist

George Murray
The Rush to Here
(Nightwood Editions)

Finalist

Anne Simpson
Quick
(McClelland & Stewart)

2007

Winner

Steve McOrmond
Primer on the Hereafter
(Wolsak & Wynn)

Finalist

Mary Dalton
Red Ledger
(Véhicule Press)

Finalist

Peter Sanger
Aiken Drum
(Gaspereau Press)

2006

Winner

Anne Compton
Processional
(Fitzhenry & Whiteside)

Finalist

Robin McGrath
Covenant of Salt
(Creative Book Publishing)

Finalist

Harry Thurston
A Ship Portrait
(Gaspereau Press)

2005

Winner

David Helwig
The Year One
(Gaspereau Press)

Finalist

Sue Goyette
Undone
(Brick Books)

Finalist

John Smith
Fireflies in the Magnolia Grove
(Acorn Press)

2004

Winner

Brian Bartlett
Wanting the Day
(Goose Lane Editions)

Finalist

Jill MacLean
The Brevity of Red
(Signature Editions)

Finalist

Sue Sinclair
Mortal Arguments
(Brick Books)

2003

Winner

Anne Compton
Opening the Island
(Fitzhenry & Whiteside)

Finalist

Brian Bartlett
The Afterlife of Trees
(McGill-Queen’s University Press)

Finalist

Robert Moore
So Rarely in Our Skins
(The Muses’ Company)

2002

Winner

M. Travis Lane
Keeping Afloat
(Guernica Editions)

Finalist

Herménégilde Chiasson
Conversations
(Goose Lane Editions)

Finalist

Patrick Warner
All Manner of Misunderstanding
(Creative Book Publishing)

2001

Winner

Anne Simpson
Light Falls Through You
(McClelland & Stewart)

Finalist

Douglas Burnet Smith
The Killed
(Wolsak & Wynn)

Finalist

John MacKenzie
Sledgehammer and Other Poems
(Polestar/Raincoast)

2000

Winner

Ken Babstock
Mean
(House of Anansi)

Finalist

Herménégilde Chiasson
Climates
(Goose Lane Editions)

Finalist

George Elliott Clarke
Beatrice Chancy
(Polestar)

1999

Winner

John Steffler
That Night We Were Ravenous
(McClelland & Stewart)

Finalist

Don Domanski
Parish of the Physic Moon
(McClelland & Stewart)

Finalist

Robin McGrath
Escaped Domestics
(Creative Book Publishing)

1998

Winner

Carmelita McGrath
To the New World
(Killick Press)

Finalist

Carole Glasser Langille
In Cannon Cave
(Brick Books)

Father Joseph Murray Abraham was a Canadian Jesuit missionary who dedicated his life to giving education and agricultural opportunities to the poorest people of Kuseong, India. Father Abe, as he was affectionately known, died on August 28, 2012 at the age of 87. Tens of thousands of people from all walks of life thronged to his funeral in Kurseong, high in the Himalayan mountains, to show their appreciation for all he did. Memorial services were also held in Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto.

“He was arguably one of Halifax’s most ingenious sons,” wrote WFNS member Kathleen Martin in a 2012 story in Progress Magazine. “Many of his greatest lessons, he would tell you, came from observing how Atlantic Canadians find innovative solutions with limited resources. How to treat people with kindness. How to share hardships. How to tell a story. How to keep trying. How to ask friends for help.”

Born in North Sydney in 1925, Father Abe attended Saint Mary’s College High School in Halifax and entered the Jesuit order in Guelph, Ontario, in 1941. A Jesuit for 70 years, Father Abe volunteered for the Canadian mission in Darjeeling in 1948. India had just achieved independence when he arrived. His first years in India were spent completing a degree in theology and learning Nepali. During this time, he was also put in charge of a boys’ orphanage that was attached to the parish school. This was his first taste of the problems faced by the poorest of the poor. It was also when he began asking family and friends in Canada to help their Indian brothers and sisters. He mobilized his mother and the ladies’ group at her church to make warm flannel pajamas for all the boys. After graduation, he was assigned to St Joseph’s North Point in Darjeeling, where he taught children of affluent families. He was an outstanding teacher, but his heart was always with the disadvantaged.

In 1959, he was assigned to take over St. Alphonsus High School in Kurseong. Housed in an old hunting lodge, the school building was a ramshackle affair, never intended to hold as many students as it did. In 1960, he returned to Halifax to complete a Masters in Education at St. Mary’s University and then drove his mother’s car across Canada asking Canadian friends to help him build a new school by giving up family dessert one night a week. With pledges from over 1200 families, Father Abe returned to India in 1962 ready to build his school. 

Political events, however, caused massive inflation in the price of building materials. He could no longer afford to buy the cement he needed to build the new school. So he made it–out of the mountain against which the school stood. With every student, teacher, and administrator working two periods a day for ten years, they chipped away the mountain, which workers then turned into concrete blocks, and built the new St. Alphonsus School, completing it in 1972. Their motto was “the best education we can give to the poorest children we can find.” It stands to this day, a high school for more than 1,000 students.

But there was more. He started a poultry farm of 3,600 birds on the school roof, dividing the fowl into small ‘businesses’ of 300 to 400 each. These were managed by children whose tuition was being paid by an increasing family of friends in Canada. The students learned the practical uses of math and science, as well as the value of teamwork. When Fr. Abe left St Alphonsus after more than 20 years, former students joined him to set up another enterprise in 1978: the St. Alphonsus Social and Agricultural Centre (SASAC). There he pioneered programs in bio-gas and Square Meter Vegetable Gardening, a method for organic farming in small spaces. Once the techniques were perfected, his young people went into neighbouring villages to teach poor farmers, who had only small, rocky plots to work, how to dramatically increase the yield of their land, grow crops that brought higher prices, and maintain healthy gardens without chemicals. Fr. Abe also build villages for poor families, and pioneered organic mushroom growing, an ideal small, home-based business for poor women.

A prolific writer and mesmerizing public speaker, Father Abe drew in an army of Canadian friends who supported his projects and with whom he kept in regular correspondence over more than 50 years. Even after retiring, well into his eighties, Father Abe began writing a daily poem, a “Rhymed Reflection,” which he shared via email with his friends. He continued this practice almost until his death.

For further information on J.M. Abraham and his work in India, see the 2006 documentary called Louder Than Words, The Story of SASAC (Saint Alphonsus Social and Agricultural Centre), produced by Priscilla Wyrzykowski. You can also read Father Abe’s “Pacem in Terris” (originally in the Sacred Heart Messenger at Christmas time in 1963), a poem he wrote in response to Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris, Peace on Earth.

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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 firstcopyright 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