2011 Shortlist, Atlantic Book Awards

2011 Shortlist, Atlantic Book Awards

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature

 

  Jan L. Coates

  A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk 

  (Red Deer Press)

When civil war strikes Jacob Deng’s Southern Sudanese village, seven-year-old Jacob embarks on a seemingly endless journey that tests his courage and determination. His wise mama tells him that he must one day go to school to seek answers and help carve a better future for his people. 

Jan Coates is employed as a substitute teacher with the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board.  In addition to A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk,  she’s the author of one picture book (Rainbows in the Dark, Second Story Press, 2005), and eight chapter books for JLS, a Korean English Language School, 2010-11.  Her interests range from playing badminton and fitness to improving her French and raising money for Wadeng Wings of Hope, a charitable foundation started by the inspiration for her novel, Jacob Akech Deng, who is raising funds to build a school in Sudan. Proceeds from the novel are being shared with the foundation. Jan Coates’ interest in writing stemmed from her love of the written word and her interest in sharing her passion for literacy with young readers. Her work has appeared in Canadian Living Magazine, The Chronicle Herald and on CBC Radio. She lives in Wolfville with her husband and two children. www.jancoates.ca

 

  Shauntay Grant

  The City Speaks in Drums

  (Nimbus Publishing)

Two boys start their day in the North End Halifax neighbourhood, and then explore the downtown of the city, taking in all of the sights and sounds Halifax has to offer. Shauntay‘s signature spoken word-style poetry is paired perfectly with Susan Tooke’s realistic illustrations featuring landmarks such as the Citadel, Public Gardens, the Halifax skate park, and familiar figures such as buskers, musicians, and street dancers. This is a wonderful story about the vibrancy of city life.

Shauntay Grant is a writer, spoken word performer, broadcast journalist and musician. She has shared her blend of poetry and music internationally at festivals and events, and as Halifax’s third Poet Laureate (2009–2010) she organized Canada’s first national gathering of Canadian Poets Laureate. Her first children’s book, called Up Home, won her a 2009 Atlantic Book Award for Best Atlantic Published Book. Shauntay was a Poet of Honour at the 2010 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Ottawa. She is the host of All The Best, a music program that airs weekly on CBC Radio One in the Maritimes. www.shauntaygrant.com

 

  Valerie Sherrard (Winner!)

  The Glory Wind

  (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)

Luke meets the uniquely vivacious Gracie and they become fast friends. But when the citizens of their small rural 1940s town learn that Gracie and her mother have a shady past, Luke must decide whether he will stand up for his new friend or save his own reputation. This striking novel explores themes of friendship, loyalty, hypocrisy, and forgiveness.

Born in Saskatchewan, Valerie Sherrard’s ambition to become a writer began when she was a child, living with her family in West Germany. Her teacher praised her efforts and instilled in her a lifelong belief in her ability to write. Valerie now lives in New Brunswick with her husband, Brent Sherrard. www.valeriesherrard.blogspot.com

APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award

 

  Grow Organic (Winner!)

  Elizabeth Peirce

  (Nimbus Publishing)

Grow Organic deals with specifically Nova Scotian issues, giving advice about our growing season, which types of vegetables grow best here, and where to get local organic seeds. The book also contains a chapter of inspirational profiles of specific gardeners and farmers from around the province. The book is written in a friendly, straightforward manner, and is intended as a simple and accessible guide for people with a specific interest in organic vegetable gardening. It includes many illustrative photographs and recipes.

Depending on the season, Elizabeth Peirce is a writer, gardener, and English professor who lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has worked in vegetable gardens since she was old enough to hold a watering can and is passionate about local food and food security issues. She is the author and co-author of two other books. www.elizabethpeirce.weebly.com

 

  Out Loud: Essays on Mental Illness, Stigma and Recovery

  Various Authors

  (Breakwater Books)

Out Loud is a collection of more than fifty essays by people affected by mental illness. The true meaning in this collection is found in the willingness of the essayists to step forward and share their experiences in hopes of lessening stigma and broadening the conversation about mental illness. www.breakwaterbooks.com

Ramona Dearing provides a forward for this book. She is the author of the short story collection So Beautiful and host of CBC Radio Noon.

 

  Where Old Ghosts Meet

  Kate Evans

  (Breakwater Books) 

In the summer of 1971, a young woman finds herself in a small Newfoundland outport where Peg Barry reveals the secrets of her grandfather’s mysterious life. The story slips back and forth between Ireland in the early 1900s, a country struggling to rediscover its identity and restore its nationhood, and Newfoundland in the 1940s, a country about to relinquish its nationhood and join Canada.

Born in Co. Sligo, Ireland, Kate Evans now lives with her husband Tony in St. John’s. She is a teacher of English as a Second Language and has taught in Dublin, London, Montreal, and Bangkok. She has written several radio scripts and has published a short story in Ireland of the Welcomes. www.breakwaterbooks.com

 

Atlantic Independent Booksellers’ Choice Award 

 

  Deborah Carr

  Sanctuary

  (Goose Lane Editions) 

Mary Majka, a Polish-Canadian immigrant, survived tragedy and incarceration at a forced labour camp during World War II to become a pioneer in Canada’s environmental movement and a proponent for heritage preservation. Sanctuary gives full expression to the monument that is Mary Majka’s life, her talent for storytelling, and her passionate commitment to preserving the environment for generations to come.

Freelance writer, Deborah Carr makes her living crafting words that share the heart, culture and nature of Atlantic Canada with others and has been published in Homemakers, Saltscapes, Outdoor Canada, Nature Canada, Wildlife Canada, Acreage Life, and Atlantic Salmon Journal, among others. A “soft-core adventurer,” she climbs small mountains, hikes, kayaks, plays in the snow and generally seeks experiences that challenge her limits. Deborah encourages others to explore the joys of writing through her own Nature of Words workshops. She shares her golden retriever’s philosophy: the best way to savour life is to just get down and roll in it. www.deborahcarr.ca

 

  Sheree Fitch

  Pluto’s Ghost

  (Random House)

Jake Upshore has loved Skye Derucci since before he can remember. Volatile, complex and frustrated (he’s got a label disorder from all the labels he’s been given) at the best of times, Jake’s on a desperate quest to find Skye before she aborts the baby he believes is his. As he hurtles headlong toward certain tragedy, Jake relives the fatal choices he’s made and the powerful forces that have led him to this to end. A gripping thriller and a heart-wrenching love story, Pluto’s Ghost is a raw and powerful novel about anger, escape, and redemptive love.

Sheree Fitch is a poet and storyteller and has been a published writer since 1987. Her work ranges from board books for babies to works for adults. Kiss the Joy as It Flies (Vagrant 2008) was shortlisted for the Memorial medal for Humour and Pluto’s Ghost has just been shortlisted for the Canadian Librarian Association’s Book of the Year for senior teens. www.shereefitch.com

 

  Johanna Skibsrud (Winner!)

  The Sentimentalists

  (Gaspereau Press)

Johanna Skibsrud’s debut novel connects the flooding of an Ontario town, the Vietnam War, a trailer in North Dakota and an unfinished boat in Maine. Parsing family history, worn childhood memories, and the palimpsest of old misunderstandings, Skibsrud’s narrator maps her father’s past. Napoleon Haskell lives with Henry in the town of Casablanca, Ontario, on the shores of a man-made lake beneath which lie the remains of the former town. Henry is the father of Napoleon’s friend Owen, who died fighting in Vietnam. When her life comes apart, Napoleon’s daughter retreats to Casablanca and is soon immersed in the complicated family stories that lurk below the surface of everyday life. With its quiet mullings and lines from Bogart, The Sentimentalists captures a daughter’s wrestling with a heady family mythology.

Johanna Skibsrud is the author of the 2010 Giller Prize winning novel, The Sentimentalists, published by Gaspereau Press in 2009, and two collections of poetry, Late Nights With Wild Cowboys (Gaspereau 2008), which was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, and I Do Not Think That I Could Love A Human Being (Gaspereau 2010). Originally from Meadowville, Nova Scotia, Johanna currently lives in Montreal, where she is working toward the completion of a PhD in English literature at the Université de Montréal.  www.gaspereau.com

 

Atlantic Poetry Prize

 

  Johanna Skibsrud

  I Do Not Think That I Could Love A Human Being

  (Gaspereau Press)

Poets have always wrestled with the mutability of things (particularly of life and love) and with the problem of conveying the true shape of human emotion and experience through the often inadequate tool of language. The poems in Johanna Skibsrud’s I Do Not Think that I Could Love a Human Being employ the tentative and uncertain characteristics of language to their advantage, pulling the reader headlong into the fray as the poet endeavours to give shape to her experience. www.gaspereau.com

  Douglas Burnet Smith

  Learning To Count

  (Frontenac House Ltd.)

 

In Learning to Count, Douglas Burnet Smith explores the counterpoint between everyday, often innocent, experiences and the darker elegiac tones of history. The lyricism of Tuscany’s sublime skies merges into J.M.W. Turner’s obsession with clouds and the author’s own retracing of Turner’s sources of inspiration. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Louis Riel, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Benito Mussolini, Robert Desnos, Napoleon and a contemplative lizard on a Corsican mountainside all have their roles to play. 

Douglas Burnet Smith is the author of 15 books of poetry.  He teaches at St. F. X. University in Antigonish.  He has served as President of the League of Canadian Poets and as Chair of the Public Lending Right Commission of Canada.  His work has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award for poetry.  He divides his time between Nova Scotia, Argentina and France. www.frontenachouse.com

  John Steffler (Winner!)

  Lookout

  (McClelland & Stewart)

 

Many of the poems in Lookout explore and evoke specific landscapes: the limestone barrens of Newfoundland; the Blomidon and Lewis Hills; the Greek Islands. Others dwell on personal relationships: lover, pregnant daughter, and a touching, finely tuned sequence on a family coping with a mother’s Alzheimer’s. There is also a wonderful set of meditations on photographs from the archives in Newfoundland. Canadian literature is blessed – and animated – by John Steffler’s contributions to it. www.mcclelland.com

Originally from Ontario, since 1975 John Steffler has lived mostly in Corner Brook, Newfoundland.  His novel The Afterlife of George Cartwright won the 1992 Smithbooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.  His poetry collection That Night We Were Ravenous won the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the Newfoundland and Labrador Poetry Prize. He has served as writer-in-residence at Concordia University, Saint Mary’s University, and the University of New Brunswick.  In December 2006 he was named poet laureate of Canada.  

 

Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction)

  Lesley Choyce

  Raising Orion

  (Thistledown) 

Raising Orion tells the tale of an eccentric, timeless woman, Molly, a second-hand bookshop owner, and her childhood as the daughter of the last lighthouse keeper of Devil’s Island at the mouth of the Halifax Harbour. At its core, Raising Orion is a novel of discovery, and a chronicle of intense individualism where to believe you can set the stars in the sky will make it so.

Lesley Choyce is a novelist and poet living at Lawrencetown Beach in Nova Scotia. He surfs in the North Atlantic year-round. He also runs a literary publishing house and teaches in the Transition Year Program for Black and Mi’kmaq students  at Dalhousie University. He is the host of a regular nationally-broadcast program on BookTelevision called Off the Page with Lesley Choyce. Choyce is the author of more than seventy books of poetry, fiction and non-for adults and children. www.lesleychoyce.blogspot.com

 

  Sheldon Currie

  Two More Solitudes

  (Key Porter Books)

Two More Solitudes is about Ian’s quest/journey through dramatic cultural change during the past 50 years and his relationship with two women, Marie in Cape Breton and Halifax and Yvette in Quebec. Ian’s downward spiral is unconventional: he tells his sad and woeful tale to a nun turned torch singer in a dingy night club. He is sidetracked in his tale by baseball games and temporary amnesia and as he struggles through a succession of career paths we come to understand him and his changing world and root for him to find a guiding star.

Sheldon Currie was born in Reserve Mines, a coal mining town in Cape Breton. He has published two collections of short stories, The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum and Other Stories, and The Story So Far; four novels: The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum; The Company Store; Down the Coaltown Road, the story of the internment of Italians during the second world war; and this year, Two More Solitudes, which takes place in Glace Bay, Halifax and Quebec City. He has written three plays, Lauchie, Liza and Rory; Anna, adapted from the novel, Down the Coaltown Road; and Two More Solitudes adapted from the novel. The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum was adapted for stage by Wendy Lill and The Company Store was adapted for stage by Mary Vingoe. During his teaching years he wrote reviews and articles on several writers, particularly on Canadian David Adams Richards and American writer Flannery O’Connor. www.writers.ns.ca

  Anne Emery (Winner!)

  Children in the Morning

  (ECW Press)

When Beau Delaney, a prominent lawyer and the father of ten children, is charged with his wife’s murder, lawyer and bluesman Monty Collins is hired to defend him. As he tries to save Delaney from life in prison, Monty struggles with his client, who is keeping secrets, and a mysterious eleventh child who shows up and demands to participate in the trial.

Anne Emery is the author of Sign of the Cross, which won the 2007Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel, Obit, Barrington Street Blues, Cecilian Vespers, Children in the Morning, and Death at Christy Burke’s, coming this fall. She is a graduate of St. F. X. University and Dalhousie Law School, and has worked as a lawyer, legal affairs reporter and researcher. She lives in Halifax with her husband and daughter. www.anneemery.com

 

Dartmouth Book Award (Non-fiction)

  John Boileau

  Halifax & The Royal Canadian Navy

  (Nimbus Publishing)

New to the popular Images of Our Past series, Halifax and the RCN marks the centenary of the Royal Canadian Navy’s founding in 1910. Author John Boileau’s superbly researched narrative is supplemented with over 150 historical photos of the sailors, ships, and shore establishments that defined the RCN. An accessible and lively photographic history, Halifax and the RCN is a fine tribute to the Royal Canadian Navy’s link with its homeport in various Canadian and American magazines and newspapers.  He is also the author of nine books and has contributed to another three.  A tenth book will be published next year.  

John Boileau retired from the Canadian Army in 1999 after 37 years in uniform, during which time he served across Canada, as well as in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Cyprus. He is the author of seven previous books, including Fastest in the World (shortlisted for the 2005 Dartmouth Book Award for Non-Fiction), Valiant Hearts, and The Peaceful Revolution. Since then, he has pursued a life-long interest in history by writing about it and has had nearly 300 articles published. www.nimbus.ns.ca

  Daniel Doucet

  Élizabeth LeFort: Canada’s Artist in Wool

  (Cape Breton University Press)

In Elizabeth LeFort – Canada’s Artist in Wool Daniel Doucet paints in word and image the work of an icon in the medium of wool, bridging the gap between art and craft.

Daniel Doucet is an Acadian with the mission of bringing his knowledge of Acadian life to the wider world. His novel Codfish and Angels portrays life in a typical Acadian fishing village. In his bilingual Coq a Rory he presents the tales recounted on a typical winter evening in an Acadian village. Doucet is now working on a collection of Acadian songs which are over 300 years old. www.cbup.ca

  Jerry Lockett (Winner!)

  Captain James Cook in Atlantic Canada

  (Formac Publishing)

While there are many accounts of his explorations to the far side of the world, James Cook’s early years in North America have been neglected by his biographers. In Captain James Cook in Atlantic Canada, author Jerry Lockett provides a fresh new account of Cook’s formative years, delving deep into the events and people that shaped his future.

Jerry Lockett is a freelance writer and editor. A two-time Atlantic Journalism Awards finalist, his work has appeared in many publications, including Atlantic Business Magazine, Atlantic Boating News, Blue Water Sailing, Conservator, The Chronicle Herald, Equinox, New Scientist, BBC Wildlife, Geographical Magazine, and Cruising World. An experienced sailor, with a lifelong interest in everything to do with the sea, he spent five years as a charter yacht captain in the Caribbean before settling in Halifax in 1996. In addition to writing, he edits books for a number of publishers. Captain James Cook in Atlantic Canada is his first book. www.writers.ns.ca

 

Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing 

  Rusty Bittermann (Winner!)

  Sailor’s Hope

  (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

Sailor’s Hope provides a moving account of a multi-faceted man, William Cooper, tracking his engagement with the extraordinary changes occurring in the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds in the decades after the American and French Revolutions. Rusty Bittermann’s lucid prose, skilful synthesis of sometimes fragmentary sources, and well-chosen illustrations bring Cooper’s world to life.

Rusty Bittermann teaches World History at St. Thomas University, and has been writing about the rural history of the Maritimes, contextualized in terms of Atlantic and World history, for the last quarter century. He is the author of Rural Protest on Prince Edward Island: From British Colonization to the Escheat Movement and co-author (with Margaret McCallum) of Lady Landlords of Prince Edward Island: Imperial Dreams and the Defence of Property. His research has been awarded the Canadian Historical Association’s Clio, Bullen and Neatby prizes. Bittermann worked as a logger and farmer before becoming a professor. www.mqup.mcgill.ca

  Josie Penny

  So Few on Earth

  (Dundurn Press)

Josephine Mildred Curl Penny grew up in Labrador during the 1940s and 1950s. Like many coastal Labradorians, she and her family lived a semi nomadic lifestyle, moving inside to Roaches Brook each fall to hunt and trap, and outside to Spotted Islands in the spring to the rich fishing grounds. Sent away to a hospital at age four, to boarding school when she was seven, out to work at age eleven, Josie lost the family bond so important to a young child. She recounts the years spent at Lockwood Boarding School where she suffered atrocious punishments, merciless teasing, and the humiliation of two rapes. The depersonalization and constant punishment eventually took their toll, and her once free-spirited nature was broken. Reading became her only escape. Set against the beauty and ruggedness of the Labrador coast, So Few on Earth is a story of perseverance in a harsh environment and the possibility of life starting anew from shattered beginnings.

Josie Penny was born in Roaches Brook, Labrador, to Métis parents, in 1943. While attending writing courses at McMaster University in Hamilton, she was encouraged to seek out a publisher for her memoir. Josie pushed ahead the idea, enrolling in computer courses, participating in several writing seminars, and earning a certificate from the Long Ridge Writers Group in Connecticut. She lives in Dunnville, Ontario. www.sofewonearth.com

  Jon Tattrie

  The Hermit of Africville

  (Pottersfield Press)

Eddie Carvery was born in Africville, Nova Scotia, when the African-Nova Scotian seaside village was midway through its third century. As a teenager, he watched his world torn down as his friends and family were compelled to leave. After Africville was bulldozed in the 1960s under the guise of “urban renewal,” Eddie returned to the site of his former hometown and pitched a tent in protest.

Jon Tattrie is a freelance journalist and writer based in Halifax, Canada. He works for Canadian Geographic, CBC.ca, Metro Canada, Readers Digest, The Chronicle Herald, Transcontinental Media, Halifax Magazine and Progress magazine, among others. He’s a board member of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia and regularly speaks to universities, colleges and schools on journalism and writing. His debut novel, Black Snow, was published by Pottersfield Press in April 2009. His first non-fiction book, The Hermit of Africville, was released in Africville in July 2010. www.jontattrie.ca

 

Evelyn Richardson Memorial Literary Prize for Non-fiction

  Laura Penny (Winner!)

  More Money Than Brains

  (McClelland & Stewart)

Public education in the United States is in such pitiful shape, the president wants to replace it. Test results from Canadian public schools indicate that Canadian students are at least better at taking tests than their American cousins. On both sides of the border, education is rapidly giving way to job training, and learning how to think for yourself and for the sake of dipping into the vast ocean of human knowledge is going distinctly out of fashion. It gets worse, says Laura Penny, university lecturer and scathingly funny writer. Paradoxically, in the two nations that have among the best universities, libraries, and research institutions in the world, intellectuals are largely distrusted and yelping ignoramuses now clog the arenas of public discourse. A brilliant defence of the humanities and social sciences, More Money Than Brains takes a deadly and extremely funny aim at those who would dumb us down.

Laura Penny is the author of the Canadian bestseller Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit, a Globe and Mail Best Book of the year. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature, a MA in Theory and Criticism, and a BA in Contemporary Studies and English. She has worked as a bookstore clerk, a student activist, a union organizer, a university instructor, and her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and The Chronicle Herald. She lives in Halifax, where she teaches at Mount Saint Vincent University and the University of King’s College. www.mcclelland.com

  J. A. Wainwright

  Blazing Figures: A Life of Robert Markle

  (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)

Robert Markle (1936-1990) was an infamous figure on the Canadian cultural scene for almost three decades. His paintings and drawings celebrating the female nude were deemed obscene by Ontario courts in 1965, and Markle defended them on national television, emphasizing what he considered a crucial distinction between eroticism and pornography. Although Markle was a Mohawk who employed Native symbolism in his later work, he refused to identify himself as a Native painter. Blazing Figures chronicles Markle’s boyhood in Hamilton, Ontario, his early exposure to the worlds of burlesque and jazz, and, following his expulsion from the Ontario College of Art, his immersion in the Toronto world of painting and music.

J.A. Wainwright was born in Toronto in 1946. He has lived in Nova Scotia since 1972 and taught English Literature at Dalhousie University from 1978-2008 where he is now McCulloch Emeritus Professor in English. He is the author of five books of poems; three novels; and two biographies, Blazing Figures and World Enough and Time about the life and career of Nova Scotia writer Charles Bruce. He is also editor of A Very large Soul: Sacred Letters from Margaret Laurence to Canadian Writers. www.writersunion.ca

  Christopher A. Walsh

  Under the Electric Sky

  (Pottersfield Press)

The Bill Lynch Shows would breeze into small Maritime towns after dark, packed with enough electricity and magic to illuminate the imaginations of anyone who stepped foot on the midway for the brief while it played their town. For the return of the Bill Lynch Shows after a long winter made summer official. The shows became entrenched in the collective psyche, at once the centre of earthly thrills and some of the greatest acts of charity ever witnessed in the region. Clarence “Soggy” Reid continued the enterprise in the same manner, until the death of a man on the carnival lot in Hawkesbury threatened to destroy the dream forever. Under the Electric Sky takes readers on a thrilling ride through the strange and fabled history of the Bill Lynch Shows, from its modest beginnings on McNab’s Island in Halifax Harbour to the successful, tumultuous years criss-crossing the countryside to its current incarnation struggling along dark Maritime highways today. This is one of the most curious stories of this region’s past, one never completely understood and, until now, never told in its entirety.

Christopher A. Walsh is an award-winning freelance journalist and author. A native of Dartmouth, his work has appeared in the Edmonton Journal,  The Chronicle Herald and on CBC Radio in Nova Scotia. Long interested in old-fashioned journalism that takes readers into other worlds, Walsh quit his job as a reporter to run away with and write about the Maritime carnival. He currently lives in Calgary, Alberta. www.pottersfieldpress.com

 

Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Illustration 

  Brian Deines

  One Hockey Night by David Ward

  (Scholastic)

Owen and Holly have just moved to Nova Scotia from Saskatchewan and everything is different. Playing hockey on their new driveway isn’t the same as skating on the frozen lake back home. Neighbours come around to help with the unpacking, but with Christmas only a few days away, Holly and Owen really miss the friends they left behind.Little do they know that this year, a special surprise awaits them. On Christmas Eve, their father reveals the best gift ever — a brand new backyard ice rink! The whole community joins in for a special game of hockey, filling the rink with new friends and new memories!

Brian Deines, a graduate of the Alberta College of Art, grew up in Alberta where he played hockey from an early age. He has illustrated several acclaimed books, including The Hockey Tree, The Annual Hockey Classic, Our Canadian Flag and Tomson Highway’s Songs of the North Wind  trilogy featuring Caribou Song and Dragonfly Kites. Brian lives in Toronto, Ontario with his family. www.scholastic.ca

  Doretta Groenendyk

  Snow for Christmas

  (Acorn Press)

On Christmas Eve we were all together, sharing food and smiles, when someone asked me a question. “What would you like for Christmas?” I grinned at my family. Everyone stopped talking and waited for my answer. “Snow,” I said shyly, “I would like snow.” Dad grinned quietly at me and then asked, “Why do you want snow for Christmas?” I smiled. “I want snow, because snow brings stories.” Doretta Groenendyk’s fourth book combines the whimsy and cheer of her vivid oil paints with the magic of a snowy Christmas to create this beautiful ode to storytelling. Prompted simply by her Christmas wish for snow, a child sits with her family, conjuring up their favourite snow-filled memories. From giant snowballs that race you down the hill to skiing off the roof, from snowmen goaltenders in pond hockey to caroling in a blizzard, each person’s memory prompts another, creating a heart-warming book that is perfect for sitting around the tree, telling stories, while the snow falls outside.

Mother of three young children, Doretta Groenendyk teaches art to young people, is active in her children’s school, and participates widely in the Nova Scotia artistic community, doing workshops around the province, including Word on the Street in Halifax. Based in Canning, NS, Doretta is the illustrator of Bounce and Beans and Burn, with text by Shannon Murray, which was shortlisted for the PEI Book Award in 2008, and I’m Writing a Story, her first book featuring her own stories and illustrations. www.acornpresscanada.com

  Susan Tooke (Winner!)

  The City Speaks in Drums by Shauntay Grant

  (Nimbus Publishing)

Growing up on the Jersey Shore, Susan moved to Nova Scotia in 1981. She has painted Atlantic Canada for thirty years, and is the illustrator of nine award-winning picture books. Susan considers illustration to be a fine art and an extension of her studio painting. She lives and works with her artist husband, Richard Rudnicki, at Elm Street Studio in Halifax. www.susantooke.com

 

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award 

 

  Kate Evans

  Where Old Ghosts Meet 

  (Breakwater Books)

In the summer of 1971, a young woman finds herself in a small Newfoundland outport where Peg Barry reveals the secrets of her grandfather’s mysterious life. The story slips back and forth between Ireland in the early 1900s, a country struggling to rediscover its identity and restore its nationhood, and Newfoundland in the 1940s, a country about to relinquish its nationhood and join Canada.

Born in Co. Sligo, Ireland, Kate Evans now lives with her husband Tony in St. John’s. She is a teacher of English as a Second Language and has taught in Dublin, London, Montreal, and Bangkok. She has written several radio scripts and has published a short story in Ireland of the Welcomes. www.breakwaterbooks.com

 

  Jerry Lockett

  Captain James Cook in Atlantic Canada 

  (Formac Publishing)

While there are many accounts of his explorations to the far side of the world, James Cook’s early years in North America have been neglected by his biographers. In Captain James Cook in Atlantic Canada, author Jerry Lockett provides a fresh new account of Cook’s formative years, delving deep into the events and people that shaped his future.

Jerry Lockett is a freelance writer and editor. A two-time Atlantic Journalism Awards finalist, his work has appeared in many publications, including Atlantic Business Magazine, Atlantic Boating News, Blue Water Sailing, Conservator, The Chronicle Herald, Equinox, New Scientist, BBC Wildlife, Geographical Magazine, and Cruising World. An experienced sailor, with a lifelong interest in everything to do with the sea, he spent five years as a charter yacht captain in the Caribbean before settling in Halifax in 1996. In addition to writing, he edits books for a number of publishers. Captain James Cook in Atlantic Canada is his first book. www.writers.ns.ca

 

  Alexander MacLeod (Winner!)

  Light Lifting

  (Biblioasis)

Light Lifting, Alexander MacLeod’s long-awaited first collection of short fiction, offers us a suite of darkly urban and unflinching elegies. These are elemental stories of work and its bonds, of tragedy and tragedy barely averted, but also of beauty, love and fragile understanding.

Alexander MacLeod was born in Inverness, Cape Breton and raised in Windsor, Ontario. His award-winning stories have appeared in many of the leading Canadian and American journals and have been selected for The Journey Prize Anthology. He holds degrees from the University of Windsor, the University of Notre Dame, and McGill. He currently lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and teaches at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. www.biblioasis.com

 

Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award 

 

  Alexander MacLeod

  Light Lifting

  (Biblioasis)

Light Lifting, Alexander MacLeod’s long-awaited first collection of short fiction, offers us a suite of darkly urban and unflinching elegies. These are elemental stories of work and its bonds, of tragedy and tragedy barely averted, but also of beauty, love and fragile understanding.

Alexander MacLeod was born in Inverness, Cape Breton and raised in Windsor, Ontario. His award-winning stories have appeared in many of the leading Canadian and American journals and have been selected for The Journey Prize Anthology. He holds degrees from the University of Windsor, the University of Notre Dame, and McGill. He currently lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and teaches at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. www.biblioasis.com

  Beth Powning

  The Sea Captain’s Wife 

  (Random House of Canada Ltd.)

Azuba Galloway, daughter of a shipwright, sees ships leaving for foreign ports from her bustling town on the Bay of Fundy and dreams of seeing the world. When she marries Nathaniel Bradstock, a veteran sea captain, she believes she will sail at his side. But when she becomes pregnant she is forced to stay behind. Her father has built the couple a gabled house overlooking the bay, but the gift cannot shelter her from the loneliness of living without her husband. When Azuba becomes embroiled in scandal, Nathaniel is forced to take her and their daughter, Carrie, aboard his ship. They set sail for London with bitter hearts. Their voyage is ill-fated, beset with ferocious storms and unforeseen obstacles that test Azuba’s compassion, courage and love. Alone in a male world, surrounded by the splendour and the terror of the open seas, she must face her fears and fight to keep her family together.

Beth Powning grew up as a book and pony obsessed child, with a poetry-reading grandfather. She studied creative writing with E. L. Doctorow at Sarah Lawrence College. In 1972, she moved with her husband Peter to a farm in New Brunswick. She wrote, grew gardens and marketed Peter’s pottery. Published short stories, articles, and 2 books of photography before publishing Seeds of Another Summer, followed by Shadow Child, The Hatbox Letters, and Edge Seasons. The Sea Captain’s Wife has recently been released in the U.S. and has been chosen as a Barnes and Nobles Discover Book. Swordsmith son, Jake, his wife, Sara, and two granddaughters live just down the road. www.powning.com

  Kathleen Winter (Winner!)

  Annabel 

  (House of Anansi Press)

In 1968, into the spare environment of remote coastal Labrador, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret—the baby’s parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina. Together the adults make a difficult decision: to raise the child as a boy named Wayne. But as Wayne grows to adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting culture of his father, his shadow-self—a girl he thinks of as Annabel—is never entirely extinguished, and indeed is secretly nurtured by the women in his life.

Kathleen Winter has written dramatic and documentary scripts for Sesame Street and CBC Television. Her first collection of short stories, boYs (Biblioasis, 2007) was the winner of both the Winterset Award and the 2006 Metcalfe-Rooke Award. A long-time resident of St. John’s, Newfoundland, she now lives in Montreal. www.anansi.ca