2025 Atlantic Book Awards winners

Winners of the Atlantic Book Awards were announced on June 5, at an event at the Halifax Central Library. Seven awards were presented.

Andrew Steeves and Gary Dunfield, the founders and publishers of Gaspereau Press in Kentville, Nova Scotia, were honoured with The Atlantic Legacy Award in recognition of their cultural contribution. They founded the press in 1997 and used both letterpress and offset technologies and fine papers to create a distinctive list that has garnered many awards for design among others. In 2024, Steeves and Dunfield announced the transition of the press to new ownership and will leave Gaspereau at the end of 2025.

The awards program also included a Readers’ Choice Award, won by Sue Murtagh for her short story collection We’re Not Rich.

The full list of winners are:

Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award

• Oil People by David Huebert (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada)

Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction

• Vigil by Susie Taylor (Breakwater Books)

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Atlantic Canadian Children’s Literature

• Standing on Neptune by Valerie Sherrard (DCB Young Readers/Cormorant Books)

J. M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award

• Island by Douglas Walbourne-Gough (Goose Lane Editions)

APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award 

• Éditions Perce-Neige for Mal by Chase Cormier