The Atlantic Book Awards were celebrated this week with a digital event. Tyler LeBlanc, author of Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion (Goose Lane Editions), tracing his family history back through the historic Acadian Expulsion from Atlantic Canada, went in with a lead of four award nominations and successfully came away with two wins.
LeBlanc won both the Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing and the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award.
“This rigorously researched narrative brings readers into the intimate fold of eighteenth-century life for the Acadian people and then deftly expands the view, reminding us that colonial persecution continues here on Turtle Island and around the world,” said the jury of the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award. “A truly stunning work.”
The 2021 Atlantic Book Awards included that inaugural Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award, created by the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia and named in honour of the late African Nova Scotian poet and teacher. The first Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award was awarded to Tammy Armstrong for Year of the Metal Rabbit (Gaspereau Press), presented by the late author’s sister, Margaret Nyajeka.
The Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, including the prize of $25,000 awarded by the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, with support from Thomas Head Raddall’s family, went to Nova Scotian author Anne Simpson for her novel Speechless (Freehand Books).
“With a poet’s sensibility for language and a novelist’s acuity with narrative, Anne Simpson draws us into some of the pivotal questions of the twenty-first century, ” the Randall jury aid of Simpson’s novel. “This beautifully wrought novel is a story for our times; it will leave you speechless.”
The full list of Atlantic Book Awards nominees follows with winners in bold.
2021 ATLANTIC BOOK AWARDS SHORTLIST
Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction
- Boy with a Problem by Chris Benjamin (Pottersfield Press)
- Winter Road by Wayne Curtis (Pottersfield Press)
- The Appendage Formerly Known as Your Left Arm by Julie Curwin (Boularderie Island Press)
Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature
- Annaka by Andre Fenton (Nimbus Publishing)
- Keep This to Yourself by Tom Ryan (Albert Whitman & Company)
- The Grey Sisters by Jo Treggiari (Penguin Teen)
Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association Best Atlantic-Published Book Award
Sponsored by Friesens Corporation
- The Forager’s Dinner: Finding, harvesting and preparing Newfoundland and Labrador’s edible plants by Shawn Dawson (Boulder Books)
- Dirty Birds by Morgan Murray (Breakwater Books Ltd.)
- Black Matters by Afua Cooper, with photographs by Wilfried Raussert (Roseway Publishing)
Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing
Sponsored by Marquis Book Printing
- At the Ocean’s Edge: A History of Nova Scotia to Confederation by Margaret Conrad (University of Toronto Press)
- The Miramichi Fire: A History by Alan MacEachern (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
- A Long Journey: Residential Schools in Labrador and Newfoundland
by Andrea Procter (ISER Books)
Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
- Silver Hair and Golden Voice: Austin Willis, From Halifax to Hollywood by
Ernest J. Dick (Nimbus Publishing) - Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion by Tyler LeBlanc (Goose Lane Editions)
- Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys by Jennifer Thornhill-Verma (Nimbus Publishing)
Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award
- Blood in the Water: A True Story of Revenge in the Maritimes by Silver Donald Cameron (Viking Canada)
- Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion by Tyler LeBlanc (Goose Lane Editions)
- Before the Parade: A History of Halifax’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Communities, 1972-1984 by Rebecca Rose(Nimbus Publishing)
Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction)
Presented by Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission and Cluett Insurance
- Good Mothers Don’t by Laura Best (Nimbus Publishing)
- The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe (Nimbus Publishing)
- The Silence of the Vessel: A Novel by Brenda MacLennan-Dunphy (Pottersfield Press)
J. M. Abraham Poetry Award
- Black Matters by Afua Cooper, with photographs by Wilfried Raussert (Roseway Publishing)
- Humanimus by David Huebert (Palimpsest Press)
- Waking Ground by shalan joudry (Gaspereau Press)
Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration
- Byron Eggenschwiler, illustrator for The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt, written by Riel Nason (Tundra Books)
- Sydney Smith, illustrator for I Talk Like a River, written by Jordan Scott (Neal Porter Books)
- Lauren Soloy, illustrator, for When Emily Was Small, written by Lauren Soloy (Tundra Books)
Margaret and John Savage First Book Award – Non-Fiction
Sponsored by Weed Man Maritimes, Heritage House Law Office and I Love Renovations
- Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion by Tyler LeBlanc (Goose Lane Editions)
- The Dome Chronicles by Garry Leeson (Nevermore Press)
- Capturing Crime by Carol Taylor (New World Publishing)
Margaret and John Savage First Book Award – Fiction
Sponsored by the family of John and Margaret Savage and Royden Trainor
- The Appendage Formerly known as Your Left Arm by Julie Curwin (Boularderie Island Press)
- Dirty Birds by Morgan Murray (Breakwater Books Ltd.)
- Aftershock: A Novel by Alison Taylor (HarperCollins)
Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award
- Year of the Metal Rabbit by Tammy Armstrong (Gaspereau Press)
- Burden by Douglas Burnet Smith (University of Regina Press)
- Waking Ground by shalan joudry (Gaspereau Press)
Robbie Robertson Dartmouth Book Award (Non-Fiction)
Sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Dartmouth
- Blood in the Water: A True Story of Revenge in the Maritimes by Silver Donald Cameron (Viking Canada)
- Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion by Tyler LeBlanc (Goose Lane Editions)
- Peace by Chocolate: The Hadhad Family’s Remarkable Journey from Syria to Canada by Jon Tattrie (Goose Lane Editions)
Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award
- Some People’s Children by Bridget Canning (Breakwater Books Ltd.)
- Dirty Birds by Morgan Murray (Breakwater Books Ltd.)
- Speechless by Anne Simpson (Freehand Books)
For more information visit the Atlantic Book Festival and Awards at AtlanticBookAwards.ca.