The BC and Yukon Book Prizes were awarded over the weekend. The winners are:
Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize - Billy-Ray Belcourt, A Minor Chorus (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Random House Canada)
Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize - Karen Bakker, The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants (Princeton University Press)
Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize - Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, A is for Acholi (Wolsak & Wynn)
Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize - Cole Pauls, Kwändǖr (Conundrum Press)
Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize - Rachel Hartman, In the Serpent’s Wake (Penguin Random House Canada)
Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize - Jessika Von Innerebner, That’s My Sweater! (Scholastic Canada)
Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes - Michael J. Hathaway, What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make (Princeton University Press)
Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award - Chief Robert Joseph, Namwayut: We Are All One: A Pathway to Reconciliation (Page Two Books)
Aside from mildly regretting the lack of history titles among the winners, I am surprised that BC-based publishers took home only one of the eight prizes, though I have no idea what that means.
I should also mention that Robin Stevenson, a prolific author of books for young readers, was awarded this year's Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence.
Congratulations to all the winners.