The Atlantic Book Awards Society has released it 2016 shortlists. Following the Atlantic Book Awards and Festival April 20–27 – with literary events in all four Atlantic provinces – prizewinners will be announced in New Brunswick for the first time in the awards’ history, at Moncton’s Capital Theatre on April 27. This is also the first year the awards ceremony will be bilingual, to include a French-language award from Association acadienne des artistes professionnelles du Nouveau-Brunswick. The inaugural New Brunswick Book Awards will also be presented.

Alistair MacLeod Award for Short Fiction

• Mark Anthony Jarman; Knife Party at the Hotel Europa (Goose Lane Editions)
• Carole Glasser Langille; I Am What I Am Because You Are What You Are (Gaspereau Press)
• Catherine Hogan Safer; Wild Pieces (Creative Book Publishing)

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature

• Don Aker; Delusion Road (HarperCollins Canada)
• Sharon E. McKay; Prison Boy (Annick Press)
• Valerie Sherrard; Rain Shadow (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)

APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award

• Lisa Moore, ed.; Racket: New Writing Made in Newfoundland (Breakwater Books)
• Teri Hall; A Seaglass Journey: Ebb and Flow (Nimbus Publishing)
• Robert Mellin; Winter in Tilting: Slide Hauling in a Newfoundland Outport (Pedlar Press)

Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing

• Brian Cuthbertson; Stubborn Resistance: New Brunswick Maliseet and Mi’kmaq in defence of their lands (Nimbus)
• Michael Newton; Seanchaidh na Coille / Memory Keeper of the Forest: Anthology of Scottish Gaelic Literature of Canada (Cape Breton University Press)
• Geoffrey McCormack & Thom Workman; The Servant State: Overseeing Capital Accumulation in Canada (Fernwood Publishing)

Robbie Robertson Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction

• Tony Colaiacovo; The Times of African Nova Scotians, Vol. II (Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute)
• Dean Jobb; Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation (Harper Avenue)
• Janet Maybee; Aftershock: The Halifax Explosion and the Persecution of Pilot Francis Mackey (Nimbus)

Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing

• Susan Chalker Browne; The Story of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist (Flanker Press)
• Dean Jobb; Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation (Harper Avenue)
• Pádraig Ó Siadhail; Katherine Hughes: A Life and a Journey (Penumbra Publishing)

Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction)

• Lesley Crewe; Amazing Grace (Nimbus)
• David Hood; What Kills Good Men (Nimbus)
• Sarah Mian; When the Saints (Harper Avenue)

Lillian Shepherd Award for Excellence in Illustration

• Doretta Groenendyk; I’m Drawing a Picture (Acorn Press)
• Ron Lightburn; Frankenstink!: Garbage Gone Bad (Tundra Books)
• Tamara Thiebaux-Heikalo, illus.; Mayann’s Train Ride by Hon. Mayann Francis (Nimbus)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award

• Gerard Doran; A Stroke in Time (Flanker)
• Janet Maybee; Aftershock:  The Halifax Explosion and the Persecution of Pilot Francis Mackey (Nimbus)
• Sarah Mian; When the Saints (Harper Avenue)