The West Coast Book Prize Society has announced the 2024 finalists for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. Through eight categories and related programs, the awards celebrate the achievements of British Columbia and Yukon writers, illustrators, and publishers. This year, all finalists are from British Columbia. The winners of each category will be announced at a gala in Vancouver later this year.
Here are the 2024 finalists:
Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award
Francine McCabe, Fleece and Fibre: Textile Producers of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands (Heritage House)
Henry Tsang, White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver (Arsenal Pulp Press)
Sam George, with Jill Yonit Goldberg, Liam Belson, Dylan MacPhee, and Tanis Wilson, The Fire Still Burns: Life In and After Residential School (UBC Press, Purich Books)
Jess Housty, Crushed Wild Mint (Nightwood Editions)
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, JAJ: A Haida Manga (Douglas & McIntyre)
Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize
G. Alaraj and Martyna Czub (ill.), When Stars Arise (Orca Book Publishers)
Kirsten Pendreigh and Crystal Smith (ill.), Maybe A Whale (Groundwood Books Ltd.)
Lorna Schultz Nicholson and Ellen Rooney (ill.), What to Bring (OwlKids)
David A. Robertson and Maya McKibben (ill.), The Song That Called Them Home (Tundra Books)
Jordan Scott and Sydney Smith (ill.), My Baba’s Garden (Neal Porter Books)
Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize
Dominique Bernier-Cormier, Entre Rive and Shore, (icehouse poetry)
Samantha Nock, A Family of Dreamers (Talonbooks)
Jess Housty, Crushed Wild Mint (Nightwood Editions)
Bradley Peters, Sonnets From a Cell (Brick Books)
Cathy Stonehouse, Dream House (Nightwood Editions)
Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize
Chelsea Wakelyn, What Remains of Elsie Jane (Dundurn Press)
Geoffrey D. Morrison, Falling Hour (Coach House Books)
Brandon Reid, Beautiful Beautiful (Nightwood Editions)
Hazel Jane Plante, Any Other City (Arsenal Pulp Press)
Darrel J. McLeod, A Season in Chezgh’un (Douglas and McIntyre)
Hubert Evans Nonfiction Prize
Colleen Brown, If you lie down in a field, she will find you there (Radiant Press)
John Vaillant, Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast (Vintage Canada)
Helen Knott, Becoming a Matriarch: A Memoir (Knopf Canada)
Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (Knopf Canada)
Emelia Symington-Fedy, Skid Dogs (Douglas and McIntyre)
Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes
Helen Knott, Becoming a Matriarch: A Memoir (Knopf Canada)
Lindsay Wong, Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality: Stories (Penguin Canada)
Angela Sterritt, Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls (Greystone Books)
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, JAJ: A Haida Manga (Douglas and McIntyre)
Y-Dang Troeung, Landbridge: Life in fragments (Alchemy by Knopf Canada)
Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize
Katherine Palmer Gordon, This Place Is Who We Are: Stories of Indigenous Leadership, Resilience, and Connection to Homelands (Harbour Publishing)
David Norwell, A Complex Coast: A Kayak Journey from Vancouver Island to Alaska (Heritage House)
Wayne McCrory, The Wild Horses of the Chilcotin: Their History and Future (Harbour Publishing)
Jennifer Bonnell, Stewards of Splendour: A History of Wildlife and People in British Columbia (Royal BC Museum Publications)
Ian Kennedy, The Best Loved Boat: The Princess Maquinna (Harbour Publishing)
Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize
Wanda John-Kehewin, Hopeless in Hope (HighWater Press)
Julie Lawson, Out of the Dark (Nimbus Publishing Limited)
Polly Horvath, Pine Island Visitors (Puffin Canada)
Janis Bridger and Lara Jean Okihiro, Obaasan’s Boots (Second Story Press)
Andrea Warner and Louise Reimer (ill.), Rise Up and Sing! Power, Protest, and Activism in Music (Greystone Books)
