2025 New Brunswick Book Awards winners

The Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick (WFNB) announced the winners of the 10th annual New Brunswick Book Awards on May 31, at WFNB’s WordSpring writing festival in Fredericton.

At the same event, WFNB introduced a new annual award, the NB Legacy Award – presented to novelist David Adams Richards – which “recognizes those whose vision, leadership, and commitment have significantly enhanced the landscape of the written word,” according to WFNB executive director Valerie Bulmer.

“Through his sustained efforts, Mr. Richards has inspired generations of NB writers, and helped shape a more connected, vibrant, and enduring community of storytellers and story seekers,” said Rosalyn Hyslop, co-owner of Mrs. Dunster’s Bakery, the sponsor of the award. The prize was accepted by Mary Jane Richards on behalf of the author. Mrs. Dunster’s Bakery also sponsors the annual fiction award.

Richards is the author of 15 novels, three collections of short stories, seven works of nonfiction, and a book of poetry. He has won the Governor General’s Literary Award for both fiction and nonfiction, the Giller Prize, the Canada-Australia Literary Prize, the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the Matt Cohen Award, among others. He is a Canadian senator and is the sponsor the WFNB David Adams Richards Prize for Fiction Manuscript.

The winners of the New Brunswick Book Awards are:

Mrs. Dunster’s Award for Fiction

• Nelson Keane for Nachzehrer (Galleon Books)

Books for Young Readers Award

• Valerie Sherrard for An Unbalanced Force (DCB/Cormorant Books)

The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize

• Michael Pacey for Van Gogh’s Grasshopper (Pottersfield Press)

Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick Nonfiction Award

• C. Ted Behne, James W. Wheaton, Keith Helmuth, Daryl Hunter, Nicholas N. Smith for Tappan Adney: From Birchbark Canoes to Indigenous Rights (Goose Lane Editions and Chapel Street Editions)

Shortlists for the awards were announced in March.

Judges for this year’s awards were Michelle Butler Hallett, Inessa Sage, Margo Wheaton, and Mark Abley.