Kobo has announced the shortlists for its $10,000 Emerging Writer Prize, launched earlier this year, which recognizes excellent debut titles published the year prior and available on the digital platform.

A team of Kobo booksellers took into account book completion rates, ratings, and reviews, and selected the following finalists from more than 140 traditionally published and self-published entries:

Non-fiction, judged by 2014 Charles Taylor Prize–shortlisted author Charlotte Gray

• Robyn Doolittle, Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story (Penguin Canada)
• Plum Johnson, They Left Us Everything: A Memoir (Penguin Canada)
• Maria Mutch, Know the Night: A Memoir of Survival in the Small Hours (Knopf Canada)
• Zarqa Nawaz, Laughing All the Way to the Mosque (HarperCollins Canada)
• Brent Rathgeber, Irresponsible Government: The Decline of Parliamentary Democracy in Canada (Dundurn Press)

Literary Fiction, judged by 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Miriam Toews

• Claire Battershill, Circus (McClelland & Stewart)
• Renny deGroot, Family Business (self-published)
• Kim Fu, For Today I Am a Boy (HarperCollins Canada)
• Ghalib Islam, Fire In The Unnameable Country (Penguin Canada)
• Elizabeth Renzetti, Based on a True Story (House of Anansi Press)

Genre Fiction (Mystery), judged by Ava Lee series author Ian Hamilton

• Janet Brons, A Quiet Kill: A Forsyth and Hay Mystery (Touchwood Editions)
• Steve Burrows, A Siege of Bitterns: A Birder Murder Mystery (Dundurn)
• John Jantunen, Cipher (ECW Press)
• Jack Soren, The Monarch: A Thriller (HarperCollins Canada)
• Sam Wiebe, Last of the Independents: Vancouver Noir (Dundurn)

Along with the cash prize, each recipient will receive support and mentorship to promote and market their work. The winners will be announced July 7.