The 2025 BC and Yukon Book Prizes were awarded to titles in eight categories.

Authors Shashi Bhat and Julie Morstad were among the award winners honoured at the BC and Yukon Book Prizes in Vancouver on Sept. 21.

The annual awards, now in their 41st year, are administered by the West Coast Book Prize Society and celebrate the achievements of B.C. and Yukon writers, illustrators, and publishers.

The winners in eight categories – as well as the winners of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence and the Borealis Prize: The Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution – were announced at a gala hosted by broadcaster Margaret Gallagher.

The winners were selected from shortlists announced in April.

Vancouver poet, academic, and former Parliamentary Poet Laureate Fred Wah was awarded the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence in recognition of his substantial body of work and contributions to the literary community of B.C.

Historian and archivist Linda Johnson was awarded the Borealis Prize for her work in the Yukon writing and publishing community.

Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize

• Death by a Thousand Cuts: Stories by Shashi Bhat (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada)

Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize

• May It Have a Happy Ending: A Memoir of Finding My Voice as My Mother Lost Hers by Minelle Mahtani (Doubleday Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)

Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize

• A Haida Wedding by Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson with Robert Davidson (Heritage House Publishing)

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize

• wet by Leanne Dunic (Talonbooks)

Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provoke

• Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love by Sarah Leavitt (Arsenal Pulp Press)

Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize

• A Face is a Poem by Julie Morstad (Tundra Books/PRHC)

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize

• Crash Landing by Li Charmaine Anne (Annick Press)

Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award

• Curve!: Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast by Dana Claxton and Dr. Curtis Collins (Figure 1 Publishing)