2026 QWF Literary Awards Winners

The Quebec Writers’ Federation announced this year’s Literary Award winners at a gala event in Montreal on Nov. 9.

The QWF Literary Awards recognize the best of English-language literature in Quebec. Each winner receives $3,000, with the prize for spoken word award split equally among the winners.

In addition to the literary prizes, Rahul Varma, co-founder and artistic director of Teesri Duniya Theatre in Montreal was presented with the 2026 Judy Mappin Community Award, which had been announced last week. The award comes with a $1,000 prize.

Also, Edeet Ravel was announced as the inaugural Lori Schubert Writer in Residence for Quebec-based, English-language writers aged 60 and over.

The 2026 literary award winners are:

Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction

• My Summer Vacation by Zeenat Nagree (Véhicule Press)

Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction

• Eating the Urban Wild: Food and Foraging in Montreal by Natalie Doonan (McGill–Queen’s University Press)

Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature

• The Mountain That Wouldn’t Move by Sandra Dumais (Owlkids Books)

Prix de traduction de la Fondation Cole

• Arabes comme il faut by Olivia Tapiero (Éditions Triptyque), a translation of The Good Arabs by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch (Metonymy Press)

Concordia University First Book Prize

• Opioids and Organs by Arizona O’Neill (Drawn & Quarterly) profile

A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry

• My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet by Misha Solomon (Brick Books)

Ian Ferrier Spoken Word Prize

• “Space Is a Vacuum” by Silas James
• “Fancy Man” by Deb Vanslet

QWF College Writers Award

• “Fishhook” by Hailey Racine

Carte blanche Prize

• “raccoon-sized or bigger” by Silas James
• “Sinking” by Katia Grubisic for a translation of an excerpt from David Clerson’s Mon fils ne revint que sept jours (Héliotrope).
• “Black Lines”by Emma Moss Brender

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