Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize finalist Krista Bridge and prolific non-fiction author and translator Wayne Grady are among the nominees for the 2013 Amazon.ca First Novel Award, announced this morning.

Selected by Q&Q editor Stuart Woods, the five finalists are:

• Kenneth Bonert, The Lion Seeker (Knopf Canada)
• Krista Bridge, The Eliot Girls (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Susan Downe, Juanita Wildrose: My True Life (Pedlar Press)
• Wayne Grady, Emancipation Day (Doubleday Canada)
• D.W. Wilson, Ballistics (Hamish Hamilton Canada)

A jury, comprising journalist and memoir author Kamal Al-Solaylee (Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes), novelist Angie Abdou (The Bone Cage), and author Brian Francis (Fruit), will select the winner.

The winner, who receives $7,500, will be announced at a gala in Toronto on April 30.