Finalists have been named for the 2025 B.C. and Yukon Book Prizes.

The annual awards, now in their 41st year, are administered by the West Coast Book Prize Society and celebrate the achievements of B.C. and Yukon writers, illustrators, and publishers. The winners in eight categories will be announced at a gala in Vancouver on Sept. 21, alongside the winners of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence and the Borealis Prize: The Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution.

The finalists are:

Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize

• Coexistence: Stories by Billy-Ray Belcourt (Hamish Hamilton Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Death by a Thousand Cuts: Stories by Shashi Bhat (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada)
• A Reluctant Mother by Deirdre Simon Dore (Ronsdale Press)
• The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard (Scribner Canada/Simon & Schuster Canada)
• Black Sunflowers by Cynthia LeBrun (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)

Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize

• More Richly in Earth: A Poet’s Search for Mary MacLeod by Marilyn Bowering (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
• Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada’s Housing Crisis by Gregor Craigie (Random House Canada)
• Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Journey Toward Personal and Ecological Healing by Dr. Jennifer Grenz (Knopf Canada//Penguin Random House Canada)
• May It Have a Happy Ending: A Memoir of Finding My Voice as My Mother Lost Hers by Minelle Mahtani (Doubleday Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir by Danny Ramadan (Viking Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)

Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize

• Death by a Thousand Cuts: Stories by Shashi Bhat (McClelland & Stewart/PRHC)
• A Haida Wedding by Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson with Robert Davidson (Heritage House Publishing)
• Wildlife Congregations: A Priest’s Year of Gaggles, Colonies and Murders by the Salish Sea by Laurel Dykstra (Hancock House Publishers)
• Who We Are: Four Questions for a Life and a Nation by Murray Sinclair with Sara Sinclair (McClelland & Stewart/ PRHC)
• The Knowing by Tanya Talaga (HarperCollins Publishers)

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize

• Midway by Kayla Czaga (House of Anansi Press)
• wet by Leanne Dunic (Talonbooks)
• Teeth by Dallas Hunt (Nightwood Editions)
• The Knot of My Tongue by Zehra Naqvi (McClelland & Stewart/PRHC)
• shima by shō yamagushiku (McClelland & Stewart/PRHC)

Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes

• Last Woman: Stories by Carleigh Baker (McClelland & Stewart/PRHC)
• Coexistence: Stories by Billy-Ray Belcourt (Hamish Hamilton Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Under the White Gaze: Solving the Problem of Race and Representation in Canadian Journalism by Christopher Cheung (Purich Books/UBC Press)
• Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love by Sarah Leavitt (Arsenal Pulp Press)
• The Cure for Drowning by Loghan Paylor (Random House Canada)

Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize

• A Garden Called Home by Jessica J. Lee and Elaine Chen, ill. (Tundra Books/Penguin Random House Canada)
• A Face is a Poem by Julie Morstad (Tundra Books/PRHC)
• This Land Is a Lullaby by Tonya Simpson and Delreé Dumont, ill. (Orca Book Publishers)
• We’re Happy You’re Here by Julie Wilkins and Brady Sato, ill. (Orca Book Publishers)
• Lost & Found: Based on a True Story by Mei Yu (Union Square & Co. / Union Square Kids)

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize

• Crash Landing by Li Charmaine Anne (Annick Press)
• Elvis, Me, and the Postcard Winter by Leslie Gentile (DCB Young Readers/Cormorant Books)
• Song of Freedom, Song of Dreams: A Novel in Verse by Shari Green (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
• Picture a Girl by Jenny Manzer (Orca Book Publishers)
• Skater Boy by Anthony Nerada (Soho Teen)

Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award

• A Perfect Day for a Walk: The History, Cultures, and Communities of Vancouver, on Foot by Bill Arnott (Arsenal Pulp Press)
• Curve!: Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast by Dana Claxton and Dr. Curtis Collins (Figure 1 Publishing)
• Untold Tales of Old British Columbia by Daniel Marshall (Ronsdale Press)
• Always on Call: Adventures in Nursing, Ranching, and Rural Living by Marion McKinnon Crook (Heritage House Publishing)
• Lightning Strikes the Silence: A Lane Winslow Mystery by Iona Whishaw (TouchWood Editions)