The winners of the 2014 Atlantic Book Awards were announced on Wednesday night in a ceremony held at the Delta Prince Edward-Prince Edward Island Convention Centre in Charlottetown, PEI.
CBC Radio’s Matt Rainnie hosted the sold-out event, which presented the wide range of literary works being produced in Atlantic Canada—from traditional novels to cutting edge fiction, thought-provoking non-fiction and to poetry, and illustrated children’s picture books to novels written for teens and young adults. Three PEI Book Awards were given out for non-fiction, fiction and poetry. This marks the first time the event has taken place on PEI.
The 11 award-winning books, publishers, authors and illustrators are:
Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature: Nix Minus One by Jill MacLean, published by Pajama Press
Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association’s Best Atlantic-Published Book Award, Sponsored by Friesens Corporation: Acorn Press for Ni’n na L’nu: The Mi’kmaq of Prince Edward Island by Jesse Francis and A.J.B. Johnston
Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing, Sponsored by Marquis Book Printing: Black Loyalists: Southern Settlers of Nova Scotia’s First Free Black Communities by Ruth Holmes Whitehead, published by Nimbus Publishing
Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson presented by the Kiwanis Club of Dartmouth: Scapegoat: the extraordinary legal proceedings following the 1917 Halifax Explosion by Joel Zemel, published by New World Publishing
Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing: The August Gales: The Tragic Loss of Fishing Schooners in the North Atlantic, 1926 and 1927 by Gerald Hallowell, published by Nimbus Publishing
Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction) presented by Boyne Clarke: Fallsy Downsies by Stephanie Domet, published by Invisible Publishing
Lillian Shepherd Award for Excellence in Illustration: Susan Tooke for Lasso the Wind: Aurélia’s Verses and Other Poems written by George Elliott Clarke, published by Nimbus Publishing
Margaret and John Savage First Book Award sponsored by Collins Barrow, Weed Man and the Savage Family: Turn Us Again by Charlotte R. Mendel, published by Roseway Publishing
PEI Book Award – Fiction (part of the Prince Edward Island Book Awards): Riptides: New Island Fiction edited by Richard Lemm, published by Acorn Press
PEI Book Award – Non-Fiction (part of the Prince Edward Island Book Awards): Ni’n na L’nu: The Mi’kmaq of Prince Edward Island by Jesse Francis and A.J.B. Johnston, published by Acorn Press
PEI Book Award – Poetry (part of the Prince Edward Island Book Awards): The TWIG Collective – A Gathering of Twigs edited by P. Susan Buchanan and Margot Maddison-MacFadyen, published by TWiG Publications
