The Quebec Writers’ Federation released the shortlists for 25th QWF Literary Awards on Oct. 17.

The winners of the six prizes will be announced at the QWF Literary Awards Gala on Nov. 13, in Montreal. Each award comes with a $3,000 prize.

Several additional winners will also be revealed at the event, including for the College Writers Award, the carte blanche Prize, the Judy Mappin Community Award, and the 2023 QWF Spoken Word Prize.

The 2023 QWF Book Award finalists are:

Concordia University First Book Prize

• Sheima Benembarek, Halal Sex: The Intimate Lives of Muslim Womxn in North America (Viking/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Tanya Standish McIntyre, The House You Were Born In (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
• Andrew Stobo Sniderman & Douglas Sanderson, Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation (HarperCollins)
• Michelle Syba, End Times (Freehand Books)

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

• Sophie Escabasse, Witches of Brooklyn: S’More Magic (Random House Graphic)
• Jennifer A. Irwin, Captain Skidmark Dances with Destiny (Charlesbridge/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Edeet Ravel, A Boy Is Not a Ghost (Groundwood Books)

Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction

• Alex Manley, The New Masculinity: A Roadmap for a 21st-Century Definition of Manhood (ECW Press)
• Julian Sher, The North Star: Canada and the Civil War Plots Against Lincoln (Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Andrew Stobo Sniderman & Douglas Sanderson, Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation (HarperCollins)
• Debra Thompson, The Long Road Home: On Blackness and Belonging (Simon & Schuster Canada)

Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction

• David C.C. Bourgeois, Full Fadom Five (Baraka Books)
• Ann-Marie MacDonald, Fayne (Knopf Canada)
• Sean Michaels, Do You Remember Being Born? (Random House Canada)
• Vanessa R. Sasson, The Gathering (Equinox Publishing)
• Caroline Vu, Catinat Boulevard (Guernica Editions)

A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry

• River Halen, Dream Rooms (Book*hug Press)
• T. Liem, Slows: Twice (Coach House Books)
• Erin Robinsong, Wet Dream (Brick Books)

Cole Foundation Prize for Translation

• Katia Grubisic, To See Out the Night (QC Fiction/Baraka Books)
  Translation of David Clerson, Dormir sans tête (Éditions Héliotrope)
• Aleshia Jensen & Bronwyn Haslam, This is How I Disappear (Drawn & Quarterly)
  Translation of Mirion Malle, C’est comme ça que je disparais (Éditions Pow Pow)
• Alex Manley, Made-Up: A True Story of Beauty Culture under Late Capitalism (Coach House Books)
  Translation of Daphné B., Maquillée (Éditions Marchand de feuilles)
• Peter McCambridge, Rosa’s Very Own Personal Revolution (QC Fiction/Baraka Books)
  Translation of Eric Dupont, La Logeuse (Éditions Marchand de feuilles)

The eight finalists for the second QWF Spoken Word Prize were announced on October 10. The prize is open to Quebec-based spoken word artists, storytelling artists, and literary performance artists working primarily in English in any form of performative writing, including poetry, story, monologue, hip hop, dub, sound poetry, experimental or interdisciplinary work.

The finalists for the QWF Spoken Word Prize are:

• BeWyrd, “Tear Down the Statues”
• Lucia De Luca, “Stalling”
• nic lachance, “when the shame smokes”
• Caitlin Murphy, “All the Screams”
• Alexis O’Hara, “Ouff – The Land”
• Raïssa Simone, “Buying History”
• Svens Telemaque, “Out of Space”
• Deb Vanslet, “Laughter in the Rain”