Maggie Helwig (Sandro Pehar)

Maggie Helwig has won the 2025 Toronto Book Award for her book Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community.

Helwig was one of six writers shortlisted for this year’s award, which honours works of literary merit that are inspired by Toronto and its residents. Her book, published by Coach House Books, was the only book from an independent Canadian press on the shortlist.

The value of the prize doubled this year to $20,000. The shortlisted finalists – Roza Nozari, André Alexis, Tanya Talaga, Vinh Nguyen, and Chika Stacey Oriuwa – each receive $2,000. 

Helwig is the rector at St. Stephen-in-the-Fields, an Anglican church in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighbourhood, and is the author of several books of fiction and poetry. In Encampment, Helwig shares an account of the community of people with no other options who erected tents next to her church so they would have a place to live.

“Encampment is the book for anyone who has ever looked at an unhoused settlement and wondered – how does this happen in a country as wealthy as Canada, in a city as vibrant and seemingly compassionate as Toronto?” the jury wrote in their citation. “It’s a difficult book to put down once you start reading and impossible to forget once you finish. Helwig’s exceptional storytelling compels us to care. You will never look at an unhoused community the same way again.”

The jury for this year’s award was comprised of literary agent Sam Hiyate, Trinidadian-Canadian author Sophie Jai, former Writers’ Trust executive director Don Oravec, Anishinaabe-kwe curator and community organizer and 2023 Toronto Book Award winner Wanda Nanibush, and poet and spoken word performer David Silverberg.

Helwig received the award at a ceremony in Toronto on Oct. 15.