CanLit heavy-hitters and a few breakthrough newcomers mix it up as finalists for this year’s B.C. Book Prizes. The nominees across seven categories include Douglas Coupland, George Bowering, John Vaillant, and Maggie de Vries, as well as emerging writers such as CBC Radio 3’s Grant Lawrence and graphic novelist Sarah Leavitt.

The $2,000 prizes will be handed out April 21 at the Lieutenant Governor’s B.C. Book Prize Gala, where the winner of the $5,000 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence will also be announced.

Established in 1985, the awards recognize the best of B.C. writers and publishers and are organized by the non-profit West Coast Book Prize Society.

Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize (best fiction book)

• Rifet Bahtijaragic, Chernovs’ Toil and Peace
• Gurjinder Basran, Everything Was Good-Bye
• Jack Hodgins, The Master of Happy Endings
• Meredith Quartermain, Recipes from the Red Planet
• Jack Whyte, The Forest Laird

Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize (best B.C.-based book)

• Bruce Grenville and Scott Steedman, Visions of BC: A Landscape Manual
• Aldona Jonaitis and Aaron Glass, The Totem Pole: An Intercultural History
• Grant Lawrence, Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound
• Sylvia Olsen, Working with Wool
• Dan Savard, Images from the Likeness House

Hubert Evans Non-fiction Prize (best non-fiction book)

• Morris Bates and Jim Brown, Morris as Elvis: Take a Chance on Life
• Douglas Coupland, Marshall McLuhan
• Sarah Leavitt, Tangles: A Story about Alzheimer’s, My Mother, and Me
• Derek Lundy, Borderlands: Riding the Edge of America
• John Vaillant, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival.

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (best work of poetry)

• Ken Belford, Decompositions
• George Bowering, My Darling Nellie Gray
• Stephen Collis, On the Material
• Jen Currin, The Inquisition Yours
• Eve Joseph, The Secret Signature of Things

Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize

• Maggie de Vries and Renné Benoit (illus.), Fraser Bear: A Cub’s Life
• Julie Flett, Owls See Clearly at Night (Lii Yiiboo Nayaapiwak lii Swer): A Michif Alphabet (L’alfabet di Michif)
• Seiji Hiroe, The Cowboy Fisherman
• Deborah Hodge and Brian Harris (illus.), Up We Grow! A Year in the Life of a Small, Local Farm
• Ian McAllister and Nicholas Read, The Salmon Bears: Giants of the Great Bear Rainforest

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize (best non-illustrated children’s book)

• Maggie de Vries, Hunger Journeys
• Polly Horvath, Northward to the Moon
• Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, Fatty Legs
• Gina McMurchy-Barber, Free as a Bird
• Susin Nielsen, Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom

Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award

• Robert Budd, Voices of British Columbia: Stories from Our Frontier
• Zsuzsi Gartner (ed.), Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow
• Gary Kent and Kim La Fave (illus.), Fishing with Gubby
• Ross King, Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven
• Grant Lawrence, Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound