Tea Gerbeza (Ali Lauren), Roza Nozari (Sarah Bodri), and Ziyad Saadi (Melissa Toh).

Tea Gerbeza, Roza Nozari, and Ziyad Saadi have been named the finalists for the 2025 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers.

The Writers’ Trust of Canada announced the three finalists for this year’s award on September 3.

The annual $12,000 prize celebrates debut books by authors who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, Two-Spirit, or another part of the LGBTQ2S+ community.

The three finalists for this year’s award – each of whose books is written in a different genre – were selected from 27 submitted titles by a jury comprised of Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, Darrin Hagen, and Janika Oza.

Gerbeza was nominated for How I Bend Into More (Palimpsest Press), a long poem which weaves “through the intersections of disability, generational trauma, migration, and queerness, … [and] articulates a vision of reclaiming the changing self with extraordinary grace,” the jury wrote in their citation.

Nozari was nominated for All the Parts We Exile (Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada), a memoir that the jury wrote “appeals to the universal with this moving tribute to authenticity, resilience, and self-acceptance.”

Saadi was nominated for Three Parties (Hamish Hamilton Canada/Penguin Random House Canada), “an authentic and moving novel that explores the thrill and danger of stepping off the precipice into an unknown future, the impact of secrets and shame, the trauma of a homeland left behind, and the futility of trying to control destiny,” the jury wrote in their citation.

The winner will be named at the Writers’ Trust Awards in Toronto on November 13. The two finalists will each receive $2,000.

The prize has been awarded since it was founded by Robin Pacific in 2007 in honour of the late Dayne Ogilvie, and received an investment by 2023’s winner, Anuja Varghese. Anthony Oliveira won last year’s prize for his debut novel, Dayspring.