Alix Hawley

Amazon.ca has announced the shortlist for its First Novel Award, which recognizes an exceptional English-language title by a Canadian first-time novelist.

The finalists, as selected by The Walrus fiction editor Nick Mount, include Sean Michaels for his 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning Us Conductors and three-time CBC Literary Prize–shortlisted Alix Hawley for All True Not a Lie It It. The shortlist in full is as follows:

• Alix Hawley, All True Not a Lie In It (Knopf Canada)
• Emma Hooper, Etta and Otto and Russell and James (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
• Sean Michaels, Us Conductors (Random House Canada)
• Guillaume Morissette, New Tab (Esplanade Books)
• Chelsea Rooney, Pedal (Caitlin Press)

Each finalist will receive a $1,000 prize and a $450 credit to Amazon.ca. The winner of the $7,500 prize (and $750 Amazon.ca credit) will be selected by a panel comprising Mount and authors Helen Humphreys and Richard Wagamese, and will be announced at a ceremony in Toronto on May 21.