Announcing the 2025 Nova Scotia & Atlantic Book Awards Nominees!

The ceremonies for the Nova Scotia and Atlantic Book Awards both take place during the weeklong Atlantic Book Awards Festival, May 29 to June 5. The festival features a range of online and in-person events with the authors shortlisted for the provincial and regional awards, which collectively are worth more than $55,000. The shortlisted books are selected by independent juries for each award; however, it’s the general public who will determine the winner of the new Reader’s Choice Award.

The nominees for the 2025 Nova Scotia Book Awards are:

Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction

Tammy Armstrong, Pearly Everlasting, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
Charlene Carr, We Rip the World Apart, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
Susan LeBlanc, The Nowhere Places, Nimbus Publishing & Vagrant Press

Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award

Martin Bauman, Hell of a Ride, Pottersfield Press
Andrea Currie, Finding Otipemisiwak: The People Who Own Themselves, Arsenal Pulp Press
Dean Jobb, A Gentleman and a Thief, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

George Borden Writing for Change Award

OmiSoore H. Dryden, Got Blood to Give: Anti-Black Homophobia in Blood Donation, Fernwood Publishing
Darce Fardy*, Living With Dementia, Nimbus Publishing
Brenda J. Thompson, Enslavers of the Maritimes, Moose House Publications

*nominated posthumously

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Fiction

Jessica Ilse, The Majestic Sisters, Nimbus Publishing & Vagrant Press
Shawn Lawlor, Boom Road, Galleon Books
Susan LeBlanc, The Nowhere Places, Nimbus Publishing & Vagrant Press

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Non-Fiction

Martin Bauman, Hell of a Ride, Pottersfield Press
Bee Stanton, Atlantic Ghosts, Nimbus Publishing
Dr. Ron Stewart* with Jim Meek, Treat Them Where They Lie, Nimbus Publishing

*nominated posthumously

Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award

Alice Burdick, Ox Lost, Snow Deep, Anvil Press
Cory Lavender, Come One Thing Another, Gaspereau Press
Annick MacAskill, Votive, Gaspereau Press

Double Nominee! You read that right. The Nowhere Places by Susan LeBlanc has earned two nominations for Nova Scotia Book Awards!

The NSBAs will be presented on Monday, June 2, at Brightwood Golf & Country Club in Dartmouth in a ceremony hosted by musician and author Raymond Sewell.

The books shortlisted for the 2025 Atlantic Book Awards are open to writers from all four Atlantic provinces and are a testament to the incredible diversity and richness of Atlantic Canadian literature.

Here are the 2025 Atlantic Book Award nominees:

Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction

Allison Graves, Soft Serve, Breakwater Books
Amanda Peters, Waiting for the Long Night Moon, Harper Perennial
Susie Taylor, Vigil, Breakwater Books

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Atlantic Canadian Children’s Literature

Chad Lucas, You Owe Me One, Universe, Harry N. Abrams
Rebecca Phillips, The End of Always, Second Story Press
Valerie Sherrard, Standing on Neptune, DCB Young Readers
Hannah D. State, Journey to the Dark Galaxy, Glowing Light Press
Gloria Ann Wesley, Shovels not Rifles, Formac Publishing Company

APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award 

Éditions Perce-Neige for Mal, by Chase Cormier
Goose Lane Editions for Zaatari, by Karen E. Fisher
Nimbus Publishing for Death & Other Inconveniences, by Lesley Crewe

1. M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award

Clare Goulet, Graphis Scripta / Writing Lichen, Gaspereau Press
Annick MacAskill, Votive, Gaspereau Press
Johanna Skibsrud, Medium, Book*hug Press
Bren Simmers, The Work, Gaspereau Press
Douglas Walbourne-Gough, Island, Goose Lane Editions

Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award

Carol Bruneau, Threshold, Nimbus Publishing & Vagrant Press
Mark Blagrave, Felt, Cormorant Books
Charlene Carr, We Rip the World Apart, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
David Huebert, Oil People, McClelland & Stewart
Susie Taylor, Vigil, Breakwater Books

More Double Nominees! We Rip the World Apart by Charlene Carr is nominated for BOTH the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Carr was also a double nominee just last year with her novel Hold My Girl. 

Votive by Annick MacAskill is nominated for BOTH the Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award and the J. M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award.

Hell of a Ride: Chasing Home and Survival on a Bicycle Voyage Across Canada by Martin Bauman is nominated for BOTH the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Non-Fiction) and the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award.

Vigil by Susie Taylor is nominated for BOTH the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.

Congratulations to all nominees! Let’s get reading!

Reader’s Choice Award! Which book do you think should win the 2025 Reader’s Choice Award? The award is open to any book written by an Atlantic Canadian author or published in Atlantic Canada in 2024 and will be decided by the public in two rounds. First round of voting starts May 1st! Everyone is invited to participate. 

On Thursday, June 5, the four Atlantic book awards, including one of Canada’s biggest book prizes, the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award valued at $30,000, will be presented. The Atlantic Book Awards gala, which also includes presentations of the Atlantic Legacy Award and the Reader’s Choice Award, takes place at 7 p.m. at Paul O’Regan Hall in Halifax Central Library, with CBC Television host Amy Smith as emcee. The awards ceremony will also be live-streamed so book lovers across the region and beyond can join in the celebration.

https://www.zeffy.com/ticketing/atlantic-book-awards-gala

The 2025 Atlantic Book Awards and Festival thanks its partners (Atlantic Books Today, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia Department of Tourism Culture and Heritage, Canada Book Fund, Access Copyright, Gordon Stirrett Wealth Management, Cox & Palmer, The Cabot Trail Writers Festival, The AfterWords Literary Festival, and the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.) and acknowledges that in-person festival events will take place in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. This territory is covered by the Treaties of Peace and Friendship first signed in 1725.