Wab Kinew (photo: Pat O’Rourke)

Rakuten Kobo has released the shortlists for its second annual Emerging Writer Prize, awarding $10,000 and book-marketing support to three self- or traditionally published Canadian authors.

The shortlists were selected by a team of booksellers based on Kobo reader data, including customer ratings, reviews, and book-completion rates. The final judging process is in the hands of authors Gail Anderson-Dargatz (literary fiction), Camilla Gibb (non-fiction), and Lynsay Sands (genre fiction/romance). The winners will be announced June 21.

The shortlists are:

Literary fiction

• Andrew Battershill, Pillow (Coach House Books)
• Kevin Hardcastle, Debris (Biblioasis)
• Irina Kovalyova, Specimen (House of Anansi Press)
• Tracey Lindberg, Birdie (HarperCollins)
• Sabrina Ramnanan, Nothing Like Love (Doubleday Canada)
• Wendi Stewart, Meadowlark (NeWest Press)

Non-fiction

• Wab Kinew, The Reason You Walk (Penguin Canada)
• Dan Rubinstein, Born to Walk: The Transformative Power of a Pedestrian Act (ECW Press)
• Lori Shenher, That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away (Greystone Books)
• Emily Urquhart, Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family and the Mystery of Our Hidden Genes (HarperCollins)
• David Usher, Let the Elephants Run (Anansi)
• Sheila Watt-Cloutier, The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet (Penguin Canada)

Genre fiction – romance

• Sally Christie, The Sisters of Versailles (Atria Books)
• Megan Michelau, Operation Wildcat (self-published)
• Melanie Stanford, Sway (Samhain Publishing)
• Taryn Leigh Taylor, Kiss and Makeup (Harlequin Books)
• Eleanor Webster, No Conventional Miss (Harlequin)
• Nicola R. White, Fury’s Kiss (Strange Roads Press)