St. John’s, NL (May 17, 2012) — The winners of the 2012 Atlantic Book Awards were announced Thursday night in a ceremony held at the LSPU Hall in St. John’s, Newfoundland, the first time the annual event took place outside of Nova Scotia. Amy House hosted the sold-out event, which also featured a performance by Andy Jones and few words from City of St. John’s Poet Laureate Tom Dawe.

This is also the first time that two of the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards — Ches Crosbie Barristers Fiction Award and The Bruneau Family Children’s/Young Adult Literature Award — were presented as part of the Atlantic Book Awards.

The nine award-winning books represent the wide range of literary works being produced in Atlantic Canada and by Atlantic Canadian authors and publishers. The winners are:

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature
The Year Mrs. Montague Cried, by New Brunswick author Susan White, published by PEI’s Acorn Press

APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award
Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada by Chris Benjamin, published by Halifax’s Nimbus Publishing

Ches Crosbie Barristers Fiction Award
Moonlight Sketches by Gerard Collins (Creative Book Publishing)

Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson, presented by the Kiwanis Club of Dartmouth
The Atlantic Coast: A Natural History by Nova Scotian naturalist Harry Thurston, published by Greystone Books in association with the David Suzuki Foundation

Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
Necessaries and Sufficiencies: Planter Society in Londonderry, Onslow and Truro Townships, 1761-1780 by Carol Campbell and James F. Smith, published by Cape Breton University Press

Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction), presented by Boyne Clarke
Great Village by Mary Rose Donnelly (Cormorant Books)

Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration
Sydney Smith for There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen by Sheree Fitch (Nimbus Publishing)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award
The Town That Drowned by New Brunswick’s Riel Nason, published by Goose Lane Editions

The Bruneau Family Children’s/Young Adult Literature Award
Jack and the Manger by Andy Jones, illustrated by Darka Erdelji (Running the Goat Books & Broadsides)

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About the Awards:
Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature
The impetus for this $2,000 award came from the late Ann Connor Brimer who was a strong advocate of Canadian children’s literature and saw the need to recognize and encourage children’s writers in Atlantic Canada.
Shortlisted: Betsy Wickwire’s Dirty Secret by Vicki Grant (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.) and Chasing Freedom by Gloria Ann Wesley (Roseway Publishing)

APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award
The Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association’s award for Best Atlantic Published Book recognizes publishing companies and their hardworking professionals who bring out new books each season. Each year, a publisher whose book possesses the best balance of content, presentation, quality of design and production, as well as contributing the most to an understanding of Atlantic Canada, receives the award. The first prize of $5,000 (sponsored by Friesens) is shared between the winning publishing firm ($4,000) and the book’s author ($1,000).
Shortlisted: Salmon Country by Doug Underhill, photographs by André Gallant (Goose Lane Editions) and That Forgetful Shore by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole (Breakwater Books)

Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson, presented by the Kiwanis Club of Dartmouth
The Dartmouth Book Awards were established in 1989 by then mayor of Dartmouth, Dr. John Savage. The annual awards for fiction and non-fiction, valued at $1,500 each, honour the best books published the previous year in celebration of Nova Scotia and its people.
Shortlisted: Necessaries and Sufficiencies: Planter Society in Londonderry, Onslow and Truro Townships, 1761-1780 by Carol Campbell and James F. Smith, (Cape Breton University Press) and Heroes of the Acadian Resistance by Dianne Marshall (Formac Publishing)

Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
The Atlantic Book Awards Society created the Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing and received an endowment from the Democracy 250 committee to fund the $2,000 annual prize for an outstanding work of non-fiction that promotes awareness of, and appreciation for, an aspect of the history of the Atlantic Provinces.
Shortlisted: The Lookout: A History of Signal Hill by James E. Candow (Creative Book Publishing) and Imaginary Line: Life on an unfinished border by Jacques Poitras (Goose Lane Editions)

Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction), presented by Boyne Clarke
The Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award for fiction is sponsored by Boyne Clarke Barristers and Solicitors. Jim Connors was a volunteer juror of the fiction entries from the outset of the annual competitions.
Shortlisted: Diligent River Daughter by Bruce Graham (Pottersfield Press) and a possible madness by Frank MacDonald (Cape Breton University Press)

Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration
Lillian Shepherd was a long-time buyer for The Book Room in Halifax. This award was established by her many friends to applaud the book that combines Lillian’s love for illustrated children’s books and her affinity for locally produced work.
Shortlisted: Thank You for My Bed by Doretta Groenendyk (Acorn Press) and A Day with You in Paradise by Lennie Gallant, illustrated by Patsy MacKinnon (Nimbus Publishing)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award
The Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, presented for the first time in 2003 with a value of $1,500, recognizes the best first book of fiction or non-fiction published in the previous year by an Atlantic writer.
Shortlisted: The Lightning Field by Heather Jessup (Gaspereau Press) and A Description of the Blazing World by Michael Murphy (Freehand Books)

Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards
The Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards are co-presented by the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Literary Arts Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, under the distinguished patronage of The Honourable John C. Crosbie, Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador. This is the sixteenth consecutive year for the biennial awards, which cover a two-calendar-year publishing period. The pairings are Children’s/Young Adult Literature and Fiction in one year and Poetry and Non-fiction the next year. The winning author receives $1,500 and each runner-up receives $500.
Shortlisted (Ches Crosbie Barristers Fiction Award): New Under the Sun by Kevin Major  (Cormorant Books) and double talk by Patrick Warner (Breakwater Books)
Shortlisted (The Bruneau Family Children’s/Young Adult Literature Award): edge of time by Susan M. MacDonald (Breakwater Books), Dragon Seer’s Gift by Janet McNaughton (Harper Collins)

About the Atlantic Book Awards Society
The Atlantic Book Awards Society (ABAS) is a registered non-profit organization with the mandate “to promote and acknowledge excellence in Atlantic Canadian writing and book publishing through an annual awards ceremony and related events.” The board of the ABAS is committed to being a truly regional organization with representation from all four Atlantic provinces.

The ABAS recognizes the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Canada Book Fund, the Canada Council, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Province of Nova Scotia through the Department of Communities, Culture & Heritage, the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association, Atlantic Books Today, Advocate Printing, Telegraph-Journal, The Chronicle Herald, The Telegram, and The Guardian.

Social Media Links:
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/atlanticbookawards/ (including author photos, bios, and book covers)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/70023079714/
Twitter: @AtlBookAwards #atlanticbookawards
Storify: http://storify.com/AliasGrace/2012-atlantic-book-awards

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For more information or media inquiries, please contact Kimberly Walsh (Atlantic Book Awards Festival Publicist) at (902) 452-9841 or kimberlywalsh@gmail.com

For a complete listing of events, click here.

Take a look at what people are saying about this year’s events.

Twenty-six Books Nominated for 2012 Atlantic Book Awards

The Atlantic Book Awards Society is pleased to announce the full shortlist for the nine different book prizes that make up the 2012 Atlantic Book Awards. The 26 books up for awards represent the wide range of literary works being produced in Atlantic Canada—from traditional novels to cutting edge fiction; thought-provoking non-fiction and deeply researched books on Atlantic Canadian history, to beautiful coffee table books; and illustrated children’s picture books to novels written for teens and young adults. The full shortlist is printed below and is available at www.atlanticbookawards.ca.

Among the more familiar names on the shortlist are acclaimed naturalist and author, Harry Thurston for his gorgeous book, The Atlantic Coast: A Natural History (Greystone Books, in association with the David Suzuki Foundation); prolific and celebrated YA novelist, Vicki Grant for Betsy Wickwire’s Dirty Secret (HarperCollins Canada); and Newfoundland actor, director, playwright, and comedian Andy Jones for his children’s picture book Jack and the Manger (Running the Goat Books & Broadsides).
Jones is nominated for The Bruneau Family Children’s/Young Adult Literature Award, one of two Newfoundland-based book prizes to come under the umbrella of the Atlantic Book Awards for the first time this year; the other is the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Fiction.
The region’s book publishers are well represented on the shortlist. New Brunswick’s Goose Lane Editions, Halifax’s Nimbus Publishing, Cape Breton University Press, and Newfoundland’s Breakwater Books each have three nominations, while PEI’s Acorn Press and St. John’s-based Creative Book Publishing each have two. Other Atlantic Canadian publishers with shortlisted titles are Pottersfield Press, Gaspereau Press, Roseway Publishing, and Formac Publishing—all from Nova Scotia—and Running the Goat Books & Broadsides from Newfoundland.

The Atlantic Book Awards Society announced the nominees last evening at a fundraising event that featured author Alexander MacLeod—whose short-story collection, Light Lifting, was nominated for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize and won a 2011 Atlantic Book Award—in conversation with a fellow 2011 Atlantic Book Award winner, Laura Penny (More Money Than Brains) and three nominees for 2012 awards: Chris Benjamin (Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada), Vicki Grant (Betsy Wickwire’s Dirty Secret), and Frank Macdonald (A Possible Madness).

The 2012 Atlantic Book Awards and Festival runs May 10–17 with free literary events taking place in all four Atlantic Provinces. Festival details will be available at www.atlanticbookawards.ca in the coming weeks.

Winners of the 2012 Atlantic Book Awards will be announced at a special awards show on the last night of the week-long festival, Thursday, May 17, at 7:00 p.m. at the LSPU Hall in St. John’s, Newfoundland, marking the first time this event has ventured outside Nova Scotia. Newfoundland comedienne Amy House hosts the awards celebration, which also features a performance by Andy Jones. Tickets for the awards celebration are $12; as of April 1, they will be available at the LSPU Hall box office, by phone at 709-753-4531, or online at rca.nf.ca.

The board of the non-profit Atlantic Book Awards Society is made up of representatives of the Atlantic Canadian book and writing community. The 2012 Atlantic Book Awards and Festival gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Canada Book Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the sponsorship of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation; the City of St. John’s; the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association; Advocate Printing; The Chronicle Herald; The Telegram; The Guardian; and The Telegraph-Journal. Sponsors of last night’s fundraiser were Neptune Theatre, the Waverly Inn, and The Carleton Music Bar & Grill.
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Media contact: Catherine Pretty, Festival Coordinator
Tel : 902 420 9840
catherine@atlanticbookawards.ca
Web Site: www.atlanticbookawards.ca
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70023079714&ref=ts
Twitter: http://twitter.com/atlbookawards

The 2012 Atlantic Book Awards Shortlist

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature
Vicki Grant, Betsy Wickwire’s Dirty Secret (HarperCollins Canada)
Gloria Ann Wesley, Chasing Freedom (Roseway Publishing)
Susan White, The Year Mrs. Montague Cried (Acorn Press)

APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award, sponsored by Friesens
Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada by Chris Benjamin (Nimbus Publishing)
Salmon Country by Doug Underhill, photographs by André Gallant (Goose Lane Editions)
That Forgetful Shore by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole (Breakwater Books)

Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson, presented by the Kiwanis Club of Dartmouth
Carol Campbell and James F. Smith, Necessaries and Sufficiencies: Planter Society in Londonderry, Onslow and Truro, 1761-1780 (Cape Breton University Press)
Dianne Marshall, Heroes of the Acadian Resistance (Formac Publishing)
Harry Thurston, The Atlantic Coast: A Natural History (Greystone Books, in association with the David Suzuki Foundation)

Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
Carol Campbell and James F. Smith, Necessaries and Sufficiencies: Planter Society in Londonderry, Onslow and Truro, 1761-1780 (Cape Breton University Press)
James E. Candow, The Lookout: A History of Signal Hill (Creative Book Publishing)
Jacques Poitras, Imaginary Line: Life on an Unfinished Border (Goose Lane Editions)

Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction), presented by Boyne Clarke
Mary Rose Donnelly, Great Village (Cormorant Books)
Bruce Graham, Diligent River Daughter (Pottersfield Press)
Frank Macdonald, A Possible Madness (Cape Breton University Press)

Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration
Doretta Groenendyk, Thank You for My Bed (Acorn Press)
Patsy MacKinnon, A Day with You in Paradise by Lennie Gallant (Nimbus Publishing)
Sydney Smith, Monkeys in My Kitchen by Sheree Fitch (Nimbus Publishing)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award
Heather Jessup, The Lightning Field (Gaspereau Press)
Michael Murphy, A Description of the Blazing World (Freehand Books)
Riel Nason, The Town That Drowned (Goose Lane Editions)

Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Fiction
Gerard Collins, Moonlight Sketches (Creative Book Publishing)
Kevin Major, New Under the Sun (Cormorant Books)
Patrick Warner, double talk (Breakwater Books)

The Bruneau Family Children’s/Young Adult Literature Award
Andy Jones, Jack and the Manger (Running the Goat Books & Broadsides)
Susan M. MacDonald, Edge of Time (Breakwater Books)
Janet McNaughton, Dragon Seer’s Gift (HarperCollins Canada)

Award-winning author Alexander MacLeod hosts a conversation with renowned Atlantic Canadian writers Chris Benjamin, Vicki Grant, Frank Macdonald and Laura Penny on Wednesday, March 21 at Neptune’s Studio Theatre. The literary evening is a fundraiser in support of the Atlantic Book Awards Society. Tickets are $12 and can be purchased at local bookshops, Bookmark, Tattletales, and Woozles or at the door. The evening commences at 7:00 pm.

Host Alexander MacLeod’s long-awaited first collection of short fiction, Light Lifting, was shortlisted for the 2010 Giller Prize and won the 2011 Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. MacLeod currently teaches at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.

Chris Benjamin is a columnist with The Coast and a web writer/editor at CBC. He has written for The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Chronicle Herald, and This Magazine among others, is the author of the acclaimed novel, Drive-by Saviours and the book Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada.

Vicki Grant has been called “a superb storyteller” (The Canadian Children’s Book Centre) and “one of the funniest writers working today” (The Vancouver Sun). Her twelve young adult novels have appeared on shortlists for every major Canadian award and numerous American ones as well.

Frank Macdonald is the award-winning author of A Forest for Calum, long-listed for the 2007 IMPAC International Dublin Literary Award; a children’s novella; and most recently, the novel, A Possible Madness. A long-time and award-winning columnist, Macdonald’s humorous, often satirical columns in the Inverness Oran have twice been anthologized.

Laura Penny won a 2011 Atlantic Book Award for More Money Than Brains, a defence of the humanities and social sciences. Her previous book, Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit, is a Canadian bestseller and was named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the year. Her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and The Chronicle Herald. She currently teaches at Mount Saint Vincent University and the University of King’s College.

Patrons of the event will also be the first to hear the shortlist of the books nominated for the 2012 Atlantic Book Awards. The 2012 Atlantic Book Awards & Festival takes place May 10 – 17; shortlisted authors and illustrators will be featured in events in all four Atlantic provinces. The festival culminates May 17 in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where the recipients of nine different book awards will be revealed at a special awards celebration.

For more information, contact Catherine Pretty, Festival Coordinator, 2012 Atlantic Book Awards & Festival: 420-9840 or Catherine@atlanticbookawards.ca.

The 2012 Atlantic Book Awards and Festival takes place May 10 – 17 with readings and events in all four Atlantic provinces. Join us at the LSPU Hall in St. John’s, NF for the awards celebration on Thursday, May 17!

The shortlist of nominated books for this year’s awards is coming in March. Stay tuned!

Top news of 2011:

2011 Atlantic Book Awards Winners Announced: Kathleen Winter takes home $20K Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize; Alexander MacLeod, Jerry Lockett and Johanna Skibsrud also among the winners.

It was a packed house at the Alderney Landing Theatre in Dartmouth, NS Thursday night as over 200 of the region’s writers, illustrators, book publishers and readers celebrated the 29 nominees and recipients of 12 different literary prizes at the 2011 Atlantic Book Awards.

The biggest winner of the night was Newfoundland’s Kathleen Winter who took home the coveted $20,000 Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize for Annabel (House of Anansi Press), her captivating novel about a baby—who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once—born in 1968 into the spare environment of remote coastal Labrador. Annabel was shortlisted for both the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize and a 2010 Governor General’s Literary Award.

Fellow Raddall and Giller nominee, Dartmouth’s Alexander MacLeod took home the prestigious Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for his collection of short stories, Light Lifting (Biblioasis).

Johanna Skibsrud, winner of the 2010 Giller Prize, took home this year’s Atlantic Independent Booksellers’ Choice Award for her first novel, The Sentimentalists (Gaspereau Press). Skribsrud, who hails from Meadowville, Nova Scotia, was also shortlisted for the Atlantic Poetry Prize for her book of poetry, I Do Not Think That I Could Love a Human Being (Gaspereau Press).

The 2011 Atlantic Poetry Prize went to long-time Newfoundland resident, John Steffler for Lookout(McClelland & Stewart), the fifth poetry collection from Canada’s former Parliamentary Poet Laureate (2006–2008).

New Brunswick author and professor Rusty Bittermann received the Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing for Sailor’s Hope: The Life and Times of William Cooper, Agrarian Radical in an Age of Revolution (McGill-Queen’s University Press).

The Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction, presented by Boyne Clarke, was awarded to Halifax lawyer, Anne Emery for Children in the Morning (ECW Press), the fifth in her popular Monty Collins mystery series.

The Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson, presented by the Kiwanis Club of Dartmouth was presented to double nominee Jerry Lockett for Captain James Cook in Atlantic Canada (Formac Publishing), the first book for the Nova Scotia writer, editor and sailor.

The Evelyn Richardson Non-fiction Prize, the longest-running writing award in Atlantic Canada, was awarded to bestselling Halifax author and professor, Laura Penny for More Money than Brains (McClelland & Stewart).

The Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature went to New Brunswick’s Valerie Sherrard for her young adult novel, The Glory Wind (Fitzhenry & Whiteside).

Beloved Nova Scotia author Budge Wilson accepted the Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration on behalf of Halifax artist Susan Tooke for The City Speaks in Drums, written by Shauntay Grant (Nimbus Publishing). Tooke’s previous collaboration withGrant, Up Home, received “the Lil” in 2009.

The gardening book Grow Organic by Elizabeth Peirce, published by Nimbus Publishing of Halifax, won the APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award. Administered by the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association (APMA), the award goes to the Atlantic Canadian publisher of the printed book that best exemplifies publishing activity in Atlantic Canada. The prize, sponsored by Friesens Corporation, awards the publisher with $4,000 and the writer with $1,000. Prizes for the runners-up—Outloud: Essays on Mental Illness, Stigma and Recovery, a collection of essays by various authors, published by Newfoundland’s Breakwater Books, and Kate Evans’s novel, Where Old Ghosts Meet, also published by Breakwater—are sponsored by Hignell Book Printing who bestow a $1,000 printing credit to each publisher and $250 to each author. 

Two HRM illustrators were honoured this year with the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Book Illustration. Ivan Murphy took home the $1,500 prize for Gadzooks: The Christmas Goose by Jennifer McGrath Kent (Nimbus Publishing) and Sidney Smith also received the prize for Mabel Murple by Sheree Fitch (Nimbus Publishing). There was no recipient this year for the Mayor’s Award for Literary Achievement.

Newfoundland actor/comedian Greg Malone and Breakfast Television host Heidi Petracek kept the audience laughing as they hosted the big awards celebration. Eleanor Dawson, Director of Arts for Newfoundland & Labrador, announced that, in keeping with the mandate of the regional book awards society, the 2012 Atlantic Book Awards will be held in St. John’s, Newfoundland, launching an effort to move the annual event around the Atlantic region.

Media contact:

Wanda Taylor

902-420-9840 office