Ladysmith, B.C., author Andromeda Romano Lax’s novel Plum Rains (Penguin Random House Canada) has won the $1,000 Adult Fiction award from the Sunburst Award Society. The prize celebrates Canadian literature of the fantastic. Plum Rains takes place in a near-future Japan and tells the story of an elderly woman, her nurse, and an A.I. caregiver and how their lives are impacted by the cultural legacy of the second World War and Japanese colonialism.

The $1,000 Young Adult award was won by Rachel Hartman for Tess of the Road (Penguin Teen), about an adventurous heroine and her dragon-esque companion. The $500 Short Story award went to Senaa Ahmad for “The Glow-in-the-Dark Girls,” published in Strange Horizons.

Shortlisted works were published in 2018 by a Canadian author. Work published in 2019 is eligible for submission from October 15, 2019 through Jan. 31, 2020.

The shortlists for the three awards were:

Adult Fiction

• Trickster Drift, Eden Robinson (PRHC)
• Plum Rains, Andromeda Romano-Lax (PRHC)
• Armed in Her Fashion, Kate Heartfield (Chizine Publications)
• Sodom Road Exit, Amber Dawn (Arsenal Pulp Press)
• Annex, Rich Larson (Orbit/Hachette Book Group)

Young Adult Fiction

• Not Even Bones, Rebecca Schaeffer (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Feeder, Patrick Weekes (Simon & Schuster Canada)
• Tess of the Road, Rachel Hartman (PRHC)
• Black Chuck, Regan McDonell (Orca Book Publishers)
• Spellslinger, Sebastien de Castell (Orbit, HBG)

Short Fiction

• “The Glow-In-The-Dark Girls,” Senaa Ahmad (Strange Horizons)
• “Domestic Violence,” Madeline Ashby (Slate)
• “Candied Sweets, Cornbread, and Black-Eyed Peas,” Malon Edwards (Sword and Sonnet)
• “Meat And Salt And Sparks,” Rich Larson (Tor.com)
• “The Time Traveler’s Husband,” A.C. Wise (Shimmer)