The Writers’ Trust shortlists were announced at Toronto’s Ben McNally Books this morning, and journalists everywhere have a great hook in that brother and sister team Michael and Kathleen Winter were both among the nominees for the Fiction Prize. (Another potential hook: family friend Lisa Moore was among the fiction jurors.) The three shortlists are as follows:

Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize:

• Trevor Cole, Practical Jean (McClelland & Stewart)
• Emma Donoghue, Room (HarperCollins Canada)
• Michael Helm, Cities of Refuge (M&S)
• Kathleen Winter, Annabel (House of Anansi Press)
• Michael Winter, The Death of Donna Whalen (Penguin Canada)

(Jurors: Lisa Moore, Andrew Pyper, Eden Robinson)

Writers’ Trust Non-fiction Prize:

• James Fitzgerald, What Disturbs Our Blood: A Son’s Quest to Redeem the Past (M&S)
• Ross King, Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution and the Group of Seven (Douglas & McIntyre/McMichael Canadian Art Collection)
• Sarah Leavitt, Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me (Freehand Books)
• John and Mary Thebarge, The Ptarmigan’s Dilemma: An Exploration into How Life Organizes Itself (M&S)
• Merrily Weisbord, The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

(Jurors: Hadani Ditmars, Sid Marty, Michael Mitchell)

Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize:

• Devon Code, “Uncle Oscar” (The Malahat Review)
• Krista Foss, “The Longitude of Okay” (Grain Magazine)
• Lynne Kutsukake, “Mating” (The Dalhousie Review)

(Jurors: Pasha Malla, Joan Thomas, Alissa York)