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The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) announced the winners of the 2017 East Coast Literary Awards on Wednesday, May 31st at the Halifax Central Library’s Paul O’Regan Hall.

The winners of the three awards are:

  • Donna Morrissey (NS) won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award($25,000 prize) for The Fortunate Brother (Viking).
  • Jennifer Houle (NB) won the M. Abraham Poetry Award($2,000 prize) for The Back Channels (Signature Editions).
  • Erin Wunker (NS) won the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award ($2,000 prize) for Notes From a Feminist Killjoy (BookThug).

Peer assessment juries, made up of representatives from Atlantic Canada’s professional writing community, reviewed a record total of 79 eligible books published in 2016 by writers who live and work in the region. The resulting shortlists, announced in April, are a sample of the quality and diversity of writing in non-fiction, poetry, and fiction by Atlantic Canadian writers.

Shortlisted nominees for each Award also included:

Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award:

Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award:

J M Abraham Award for Poetry:

About the East Coast Literary Awards

The ECLAs is a promotional and presentation program that strives to highlight the best Atlantic Canadian work in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction through three annual literary awards. Titles eligible for the ECLAs must be the work of writers who live full-time in Atlantic Canada, and thus engage in our region’s cultural life and creative economy. A peer assessment process conducted by professional writers selected from throughout the region determines shortlists and winners. The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is the steward of the three Awards, all of which have been in existence for many years and were founded by several endowments, including significant support from the families of Thomas Head Raddall and JM Abraham.

About the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia

Established in 1976, the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia works to provide advice and assistance to writers at all stages of their careers; to encourage greater public recognition of writers and their achievements; and to enhance the literary arts in our regional and national culture.

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Prerequisites for Sleep Jennifer L. StoneJennifer L. Stone’s first short story collection, Prerequisites for Sleep, is steeped in memory. Perhaps this is what sleep sometimes requires, letting one’s mind linger over certain details of the past, key moments strung together progressing toward making sense of it all and finally, dreaming.

The weaker of these 13 stories –and there are only a few weak spots– rush through lives too quickly or tie events up neatly in an implied moral. Conversely, Stone is at her best when she pauses in a moment and doesn’t worry too much about explanations, like in “Billy,” the entirety of which is a single, taut scene, something we should probably look away from but can’t because it is as compelling as a train wreck.

Most of these stories are realist in style and focus on the struggles of the everyperson, the moments that define us whether we realize it or not. Stone does this well, often packing an emotional wallop in concise, direct prose.

And yet, some of the best stories in this collection are the rare ones that toy with the magical or introduce unexplained, perhaps inexplicable, events, such as in “Thomas and the Woman”. Stone’s acuity with perspective shows in her use of protagonists of varied age, gender, education and income. A fractured fairytale –from the point of view of a not-so-wicked stepsister hard done by the medieval media– is another stand out and exhibits a playfulness that is absent from the slice-of-life pieces.

While varied, the collection is consistent in tone and style. Stone does not waste words, deftly showing us her character’s worlds in her short pieces. Prerequisites for Sleep may very well leave you wanting for more from this author.

Prerequisites for Sleep
by Jennifer L. Stone
$19.95, paper back, 160 pp.
Signature Editions, October 2014