The Manitoba Writers’ Guild and the Association of Manitoba Publishers handed out the 24th annual Manitoba Book Awards on Saturday, April 28. Notable among the night’s 13 winners are Esmé Claire Keith, whose debut novel, Not Being on a Boat, won Book of the Year, and Susie Moloney, whose supernatural novel, The Thirteen, won the inaugural Michael Van Rooy Award for Genre Fiction, in memory of the Winnipeg crime fiction writer who died suddenly last year.

The complete list of winners follows:

• McNally Robinson Book of the Year: Not Being on a Boat by Esmé Claire Keith (Freehand Books)
• Michael Van Rooy Award for Genre Fiction: The Thirteen by Susie Moloney (Random House Canada)
• McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award, younger category: S is for Scientists: A Discovery Alphabet by Larry Verstraete (Sleeping Bear Press)
• McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award, older category: Tori by Design by Colleen Nelson (Great Plains Publishers)
• Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry: Poème Pierre Prière by J.R. Léveillé (Les Éditions du Blé)
• Best Illustrated Book of the Year: David’s Trip to Paraguay: The Land of Amazing Colours by Miriam Rudolph (CMU Press)
• Manuela Dias Book Design of the Year: Poème Pierre Prière by J.R. Léveillé, designed by Bernard Léveillé (Les Éditions du Blé)
• Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book: A Large Harmonium by Sue Sorensen (Coteau Books)
• Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award: Ravenscraig by Sandi Krawchenko Altner (Heartland Associates)
• Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction: The Girl in the Wall by Alison Preston (Signature Editions)
• Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction: King: William Lyon MacKenzie King: A Life Guided by the Hand of Destiny by Allan Levine (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher: Butterfly Winter by W.P. Kinsella (Enfield & Wizenty)
• John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer: Jennifer Still