Introduced in 2023, the Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prize ($5,000) is awarded each year to an emerging or early-career writer who is Black and/or African Nova Scotian and whose book-length work-in-progress shows promise and career-advancing merit. Submitting writers may work in any genre of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or writing for children/YA.
For questions about this prize, contact program lead Linda Hudson at wits@writers.ns.ca.
The Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prizes is a stipend ($5,000 cash) intended to support the recipient’s literary activities during the winter and spring following the submission deadline.
Literary activities during this ‘prize period’ may include drafting new writing, revising existing writing, working with an editor, submitting writing for publication, undertaking creative mentorships or professional training, and other relevant activities.
The endowment for this prize was established by the Honorable Don Oliver (CM, ONS, KC) with the generous support of the Nova Scotia Department of Justice and BMO Financial Group.
Prize eligibility recognizes the barriers to literary creation & recognition faced by Black and African Nova Scotian writers—who have faced and continue to face systemic inequity within Canadian publishing..
Guyleigh Johnson
2026 Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prize
Guyleigh Johnson is an author, artist, advocate, facilitator, and filmmaker from the vibrant community of Dartmouth North. She has published two books, Expect the Unexpected and Afraid of the Dark, through Pottersfield Press. She has also directed her own short film, Scratching the Surface, in collaboration with Being Black in Canada (Halifax) and was nominated for a 2023 Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction, Documentary Series. In 2018 she won the Ancestral Roots Award presented by the Delmore "Buddy" Daye Learning Institute. She has a passion for collaboration and community development implemented through an Afrocentric lens of collective care, responsibility and values.
Guyleigh's prize-winning submission is an excerpt from Full Court Press, a YA novel that follows fifteen-year-old Dee, an African Nova Scotian boy from Dartmouth, as he navigates grief, peer pressure, and failure.
Natasha Thomas
2025 Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prize
Natasha Thomas, a tenth-generation African Nova Scotian, is a playwright, composer, and theatre artist. A graduate of NSCC’s Music Arts program, she blends music and storytelling as director of The Beyond Imagination Puppet Crew. She is part of the Black Theatre Workshop program and has stage-managed for Dartmouth Players, Halifax Fringe, and Neptune Theatre’s 2023 Chrysalis Program.
Natasha's prize-winning submission is an excerpt from her play, Freedom Runs Two, a cantata for a puppet theatre, that tells the history of African Nova Scotians from slavery to modern days through the eyes of a child and his grandmother.
Habiba Diallo
2024 Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prize
Habiba Diallo is the author of #BlackInSchool (University of Regina Press, 2021). She was a finalist in the 2020 Bristol Short Story Prize, the 2019 Writers' Union of Canada Short Prose Competition, and the 2018 London Book Fair Pitch Competition. Habiba is an advocate and activist in support of women's maternal health. The Federal Government of Canada recognized her as an outstanding woman in 2019.
Habiba's prize-winning submission is an excerpt from her debut novel-in-progress, which captures the life of a young woman who must try to forgive in order to free herself from the burden of loss.
A Black lawyer from Wolfville, Nova Scotia, the Honorable Dr. Donald “Don” Oliver devoted his life to being a powerful advocate for minorities and breaking down systemic racial barriers to advancement. Don practiced law for 25 years in civil litigation, became a senior partner at Stewart McKelvie Stirling and Scales, and was chair of several committees of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society.
Don was a committed community volunteer, serving as chairman, president, director, or head of more than 25 charitable institutions, including the Halifax Children’s Aid Society, Canadian Council of Christians and Jews, Halifax Hearing and Speech Clinic, Nova Scotia Rehabilitation Centre, Neptune Theatre Foundation, Junior Achievement of Halifax, Halifax-Dartmouth United Appeal, and Black United Front. He was also the founding chairman of the Black Cultural Society.
In 1990, Don Oliver became the first Black man in Canadian history to be summoned to the Senate of Canada and, later, the first to be elected unanimously as Speaker Pro Tempore of that institution. While there, he served with distinction as chairman of six standing committees, including Fisheries, Rules, Transport, National Finance, and Legal and Constitutional.
Don’s principle contribution to the community for more than 50 years was as a human rights activist and catalyst, fearlessly breaking down barriers of racism and intolerance and promoting principles of pluralism, diversity, and inclusion in both public and private sectors.
In 2021, Don published his autobiography, A Matter of Equality: The Life’s Work of Senator Don Oliver (Nimbus Publishing), detailing his life as a Black man growing up in the only Black family in Wolfville, as an outspoken social activist, and as one who roots out the systemic racism that has stalled the growth of Canada’s Black citizens.
For his community work in promoting human rights, Don Oliver received five honorary doctorate degrees (from Guelph, York, Dalhousie, St. Mary’s, and Acadia universities) as well as plaques, honours, and medals from 12 Canadian organizations (including the Harry Jerome Award for community service and the Distinguished Men of Honour Award from the Black Business and Professional Association of Toronto). He was presented with the Governor General’s Commemorative 125th Anniversary Medal, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee and Golden Jubilee Medals, the Canada 150 Medal for unselfish service to Community and Countr,y and the Order of Canada for his untiring efforts as a senator, educator, and civic-minded community member who promotes inclusion and diversity in Canada.
In his final years, Don served on the board of the Black North Initiative, a national organization calling on large corporations and governments to sign a pledge to fight to end systemic black racism in Canada. He was also a businessman and tree farmer. Don passed away after a long and courageous battle with cardiac amyloidosis in Halifax on September 17, 2025.
The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is grateful to the late Honorable Don Oliver, the Nova Scotia Department of Justice, and BMO Financial Group for their contributions to the endowment for the Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prize.
