Five books have been shortlisted for the 2024 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

This year, the Writers’ Trust has announced that the purse for the annual prize will rise to $70,000, with finalists to each receive $7,500, thanks to the Balsillie Family Foundation, which has been endowing the prize since 2021.

The annual prize recognizes the best short story collection or novel by a Canadian author.

Two of the shortlisted titles this year – both from independent Canadian presses – are short story collections: Tim Bowling’s Graveyard Shift at the Lemonade Stand, published by Freehand Books, and Robert McGill’s Simple Creatures, published by Coach House Books. Otoniya J. Okot Bitek’s novel We, the Kindling was longlisted for the Giller Prize earlier this week and Maria Reva’s Endling is one of two books by Canadians on the longlist for the 2025 Booker Prize.

The jury, composed this year of writers Gary Barwin, Ali Bryan, and Jasmine Sealy, chose the shortlisted titles from 120 books submitted by 62 publishing imprints.

The shortlisted books are:

• Tim Bowling’s Graveyard Shift at the Lemonade Stand (Freehand Books)
• Robert McGill’s Simple Creatures (Coach House Books)
• Otoniya J. Okot Bitek’s We, the Kindling (Alchemy by Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Maria Reva’s Endling (Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Aurora Stewart de Peña’s Julius Julius (Strange Light/Penguin Random House Canada)

The winner will be announced at the Writers’ Trust Awards in Toronto on Nov. 13.