Carleigh Baker has been named winner of this year’s Vancouver Book Award, which annually recognizes a title that best evokes the city’s people and places. Selected from a shortlist of four finalists, Baker received her $3,000 prize at the Mayor’s Arts Awards on Oct. 11.

The author’s winning short-story collection, Bad Endings (Anvil Press), finds wit and awkwardness in troubled characters’ loss and tragedy, with settings that appreciate both urban Vancouver and the city’s forested outskirts.