The finalists for this year’s Nova Scotia Book Awards and Atlantic Book Awards have been announced.

The winners of both sets of awards will be announced at the Atlantic Book Festival later this spring.

The awards, which celebrate Atlantic and Nova Scotian writing and publishing, are collectively worth more than $55,000.

The Nova Scotia Book Award nominees are:

Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction

• Pearly Everlasting by Tammy Armstrong (HarperAvenue/HarperCollins)
• We Rip the World Apart by Charlene Carr (HarperCollins)
• The Nowhere Places by Susan LeBlanc (Vagrant Press/Nimbus Publishing)

Evelyn Richardson Nonfiction Award

• Hell of a Ride by Martin Bauman (Pottersfield Press)
• Finding Otipemisiwak: The People Who Own Themselves by Andrea Currie (Arsenal Pulp Press)
• A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb (HarperCollins)

George Borden Writing for Change Award

• Got Blood to Give: Anti-Black Homophobia in Blood Donation by OmiSoore H. Dryden (Fernwood Publishing)
• Living With Dementia: The Collected Columns of Darce Fardy by Darce Fardy (Nimbus Publishing)
• Enslavers of the Maritimes by Brenda J. Thompson (Moose House Publications)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Fiction

• The Majestic Sisters by Jessica Ilse (Vagrant Press/Nimbus Publishing)
• Boom Road by Shawn Lawlor (Galleon Books)
• The Nowhere Places by Susan LeBlanc (Vagrant Press/Nimbus Publishing)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Non-Fiction

• Hell of a Ride: Chasing Home and Survival on a Bicycle Voyage Across Canada  by Martin Bauman (Pottersfield Press)
• Atlantic Ghosts:: Tales from the Haunted Coast by Bee Stanton (Nimbus Publishing)
• Treat Them Where They Lie: Pioneering a Revolution in Modern Emergency Medicine by Dr. Ron Stewart with Jim Meek (Nimbus Publishing)

Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award

• Ox Lost, Snow Deep by Alice Burdick (A Feed Dog Book/Anvil Press)
• Come One Thing Another by Cory Lavender (Gaspereau Press)
• Votive by Annick MacAskill (Gaspereau Press)

The winners of the Nova Scotia Book Awards will be announced on June 2.

The nominees for the Atlantic Book Awards are:

Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction

• Soft Serve by Allison Graves (Breakwater Books)
• Waiting for the Long Night Moon by Amanda Peters (Harper Perennial/HCP)
• Vigil by Susie Taylor (Breakwater Books)

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Atlantic Canadian Children’s Literature

• You Owe Me One by Chad Lucas (Amulet Books/Harry N. Abrams)
• The End of Always by Rebecca Phillips (Second Story Press)
• Standing on Neptune by Valerie Sherrard (DCB Young Readers/Cormorant Books)
• Journey to the Dark Galaxy by Hannah D. State (Glowing Light Press)
• Shovels not Rifles by Gloria Ann Wesley (Formac)

APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award 

• Éditions Perce-Neige for Mal by Chase Cormier
• Goose Lane Editions for Zaatari: Culinary Traditions of the World’s Largest Syrian Refugee Camp by Karen E. Fisher
• Nimbus Publishing for Death and  Other Inconveniences, by Lesley Crewe

J. M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award

• Graphis Scripta / Writing Lichen by Clare Goulet (Gaspereau Press)
• Votive by Annick MacAskill (Gaspereau Press)
• Medium by Johanna Skibsrud (Book*hug Press)
• The Work by Bren Simmers (Gaspereau Press)
• Island by Douglas Walbourne-Gough (Goose Lane Editions)

Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award

• Threshold by Carol Bruneau (Vagrant Press/Nimbus Publishing)
• Felt by Mark Blagrave (Cormorant Books)
• We Rip the World Apart by Charlene Carr (HarperCollins)
• Oil People by David Huebert (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Vigil by Susie Taylor (Breakwater Books)

The winners of the Atlantic Book Awards will be named at a gala on June 5.