The Atlantic Book Awards Society is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 13 different book prizes that make up the 2019 Atlantic Book Awards. The nominated titles represent a wide range of books from Atlantic Canada—everything from the story of a well-known blind mechanic to the biography of 22 Minutes comedian Mark Critch. The full shortlist is below.
Young adult author Tom Ryan is a previous Lambda Literary Fellow whose books have been nominated for the White Pine Award, the Stellar Award, and the Hackmatack Award. In addition to a number of young adult novels, he published his first children’s picture book, A Giant Man from a Tiny Town: A Story of Angus MacAskill, with Nimbus in the fall of 2018. Ryan divides his time between Cape Breton and Ontario.
Evelyn C. White is a journalist and author whose books include Chain, Chain, Change: For Black Women in Abusive Relationships (Seal Press, 1985) and the biography Alice Walker: A Life (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004).
Originally from Cape Breton and now based in Dartmouth, Amy Spurway is a writer, performer, and editor. She has worked with CBC Radio and published in Today’s Parent, the Toronto Star, and other venues. This spring, her debut novel, Crow, was published by Goose Lane Editions. In what follows, Spurway talks about publishing her first book, what she likes about living and writing in her part of Nova Scotia, her new projects, and more.
Sandra Phinney is a professional freelance writer who has been writing and publishing for twenty years. Her articles have appeared in over 70 print and online magazines, and she is also the author of four books and teaches workshops on narrative, travel, and memoir writing. Phinney lives on the edge of the Tusket River in Yarmouth County. In what follows, she tells us about how she started out as a freelancer, planning your work as a writer, and more.
About
Supported by Arts Nova Scotia and in partnership with the Halifax Regional Municipality and Halifax Public Libraries, the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) is bringing Poetry in Motion to the city of Halifax.
Poet Margo Wheaton’s debut collection, The Unlit Path Behind the House (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016), won the Canadian Authors Association’s Fred Kerner Award and was selected as a finalist for the J.M. Abraham Poetry Award, the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, a ReLit Award, and other literary honours. In what follows, Wheaton talks to us about writer’s block, her new writing projects, what she likes about writing in the Maritimes, and more.
Based in Halifax, Alison Delory is a writer, editor, and communications professional. Her writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Dalhousie Magazine, Halifax Magazine, and other publications. She is also the author of two children’s books, and her first novel for adults, Making it Home, will appear with Nimbus this June. In what follows, Delory shares the story of how she got started as a writer, details of her new projects, and more.
Chris Benjamin writes both fiction and non-fiction, and is the current managing editor of Atlantic Books Today.
Writer and spoken word artist Guyleigh Johnson hails from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Her first book, a poetry collection titled Expect the Unexpected, was published with Pottersfield Press in 2016.
