The Quebec Writers’ Federation has announced the finalists for the 2025 QWF Literary Awards.

The winners of six writing awards and the Ian Ferrier Spoken Word Prize will be announced at the QWF Awards Gala, hosted by Shelley Pomerance, on Nov. 10, in Montreal.

The winners of the 2025 College Writers Award (for best English-language poem, short story, or work of non-fiction submitted by a student), the 2025 carte blanche Prize, as well as the recipient of the 2025 Judy Mappin Community Award (awarded to an individual who has made a substantial contribution to the advancement of Quebec’s English-language literary community) will be announced later this month and the awards will be presented at the gala as well.

The shortlisted titles are:

Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature

• Lea Beddia, Outta Here (James Lorimer & Company)
• Elizabeth Blanchard and Nancy King Schofield (ill.), The Bearing (Mouton Noir Acadie)
• Cassandra Calin, The New Girl (Graphix/Scholastic)
• Monique Polak, and Valéry Goulet (ill.), Remember This: The Fascinating World of Memory (Orca Book Publishers)
• Edeet Ravel, Miss Matty (Linda Leith Publishing)

Concordia University First Book Prize

• Fred Anderson, Eyes Have Seen: From Mississippi to Montreal (Baraka Books)
• Eric Andrew-Gee, The Mind Mappers: Friendship, Betrayal and the Obsessive Quest to Chart the Brain (Random House Canada)
• Jessica Bebenek, No One Knows Us There (Book*hug Press)
• Amal Elsana Alh’jooj, Hope is a Woman’s Name: My Journey as a Bedouin Palestinian Activist in Israel (Sutherland House Books)

A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry

• Jessica Bebenek, No One Knows Us There (Book*hug Press)
• Klara du Plessis, Post-Mortem of the Event (Palimpsest Press)
• Todd Meyers, Gone Gone (Duke University Press)
• stephanie roberts, UNMET (Biblioasis)
• Gillian Sze, An Orange, A Syllable (ECW Press)

Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction

• Arjun Basu, The Reeds (ECW Press)
• Lee Lai, Cannon (Drawn & Quarterly)
• Leila Marshy, My Thievery of the People (Baraka Books)
• Heather O’Neill and Arizona O’Neill (ill.), Valentine in Montreal (HarperCollins Publishers)
• Madeleine Thien, The Book of Records (Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)

Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction

• Eric Andrew-Gee, The Mind Mappers: Friendship, Betrayal and the Obsessive Quest to Chart the Brain (Random House Canada)
• Amal Elsana Alh’jooj, Hope is a Woman’s Name: My Journey as a Bedouin Palestinian Activist in Israel (Sutherland House Books)
• Haley Mlotek, No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce (Viking/Penguin Random House Canada)

Cole Foundation Prize for Translation

• Shira Abramovich and Lénaïg Cariou, The Hand of the Hand (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  Translation of La Main de la main by Laura Vazquez (Cheyne Éditeur)
• Natalia Hero, Valid (House of Anansi Press)
  Translation of Valide by Chris Bergeron (Les Éditions XYZ)
• Lazer Lederhendler, The Hollow Beast (Biblioasis)
  Translation of La bête creuse by Christophe Bernard (Le Quartanier Éditeur)
• Aimee Wall, Sadie X (Book*hug Press)
  Translation of Sadie X by Clara Dupuis-Morency (Éditions Héliotrope)

Ian Ferrier Spoken Word Prize

• Liana Cusmano, “Snails”
• Octavie Doherty-Haigh, “The Itch”
• Kym Dominique-Ferguson, “I Need to Write”
• Rachel McCrum, The Stepmother (excerpt)
• Rusty, “Innocence”
• Claire Sherwood, “Before He Was a Park”
• Romel Sylne Jr., “Math”
• Svens Telemaque, “If Haitian Blood Were Oil”