The ReLit Awards are going on hiatus.

Katherine Alexandra Harvey, the executive director of the ReLit Literary Group, announced on September 12 that although the 2023 ReLit Awards will go ahead as planned, the prize “will be on hiatus” going forward as the ReLit Literary Group seeks funding opportunities.

The awards, which have celebrated books from independent Canadian presses for 23 years, have been submitting applications to funding agencies for the last three years, but those applications have been unsuccessful.

“We are encouraged to see that independent presses now have a higher profile, and hope that we have played some small part in that good news,” Harvey said in a statement. “We have been operating as volunteers, more or less, since our inception, but with the new infrastructure of ReLit Literary Group this has become impossible. As we seek funding opportunities, the awards will be cancelled until further notice.”

The prizes had been dormant for a number of years in the 2010s, but they were revived by Harvey in 2021, when the shortlists and winners for the 2018, 2019, and 2020 prizes were also announced over the course of a month. The ReLit Awards were founded by her father, Newfoundland author Kenneth J. Harvey, to acknowledge the best novels, poetry, and short fiction published by a Canadian small press.

The long shortlist for the 2023 awards will be announced this fall.

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Update, September 15: The article has been updated to reflect that the shortlists and winners for the 2018, 2019, and 2020 prizes were announced over the course of April 2021.