The Manitoba Book Awards are back.

After a two-year hiatus, the annual awards that have celebrated the best of books in the Prairie province since 1989 will be awarded again this year.

The awards were administered as a joint project by Plume Winnipeg (formerly the Winnipeg International Writers Festival), the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, the Winnipeg Public Library, and the Manitoba Writers Guild, until a 2024 announcement that the awards would stop operations after several years of struggling with sustainability.

The awards now have a new working board, and the Manitoba government has committed to funding three of the six awards – the Margaret Laurence Fiction Award, Prix Littéraire rue-Deschambault, and the Alexander Kennedy Ibister Award for Nonfiction. The other awards will be sponsored by various contributors.

Author and editor David A. Robertson, president of the board, said in a press release that the board is excited to resume the awards.

“The Manitoba Book Awards have always been an important piece of the literary landscape in this province,” Robertson said. “They offer not only an opportunity for the public to celebrate the rich talent here at home, but to support and promote local creators.”

Robertson is joined on the board by vice president Jenny Heijun Wills, writers Seyward Goodhand, Ariel Gordon, Anna Leventhal, Rowan McCandless, Bertrand Nayet, Colleen Nelson, and Chimwemwi Undi, and visual artist Chantel Mierau.

The committee will begin accepting submissions from publishers on April 15. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in Winnipeg on Sept. 19.