The authors shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize may be newly published, but many are already award-circuit veterans. Among the finalists are Kate Harris’s Lands of Lost Borders, which won the RBC Taylor Prize; Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries, a finalist for both the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the Governor General’s Literary Awards; and Tanya Tagaq’s Split Tooth, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

The winner of each of the three categories will be chosen by an established author in the field: Craig Davidson for literary fiction, Michael Harris for non-fiction, and Dale Mayer for romance. The winners will be announced at an event in Toronto on June 27. Each winner will receive $10,000 and marketing support.

Literary Fiction 

• Summer Cannibals, Melanie Hobson (Penguin Canada)
• The Philistine, Leila Marshy (Linda Leith Publishing)
• Searching for Terry Punchout, Tyler Hellard (Invisible Publishing)
• The Dictionary of Animal Languages, Heidi Sopinka (Penguin Canada)
• Split Tooth, Tanya Tagaq (Penguin Canada)
• How Far We Go and How Fast, Nora Decter (Orca Book Publishers)

Non-fiction

• The Fruitful City, Helena Moncrieff (ECW Press)
• Heart Berries, Terese Marie Mailhot (Doubleday Canada)
• Son of a Critch, Mark Critch (Penguin Canada)
• Lands of Lost Borders, Kate Harris (Knopf Canada)
• The Measure of My Powers, Jackie Kai Ellis (Appetite by Random House)
• The Boy on the Beach, Tima Kurdi (Simon & Schuster)

Genre Fiction (Romance)

• Ayesha At Last, Uzma Jalaluddin (HarperCollins)
• Steeped in Love, Julie Evelyn Joyce
• My Dear One, Deborah Small
• The Long Weekend, Mimi Flood (Dreamy Morning Publishing)
• The Reluctant Traveler, Corinne Aarsen
• Archibald Full Frontal, Kasey Goldstraw (Iguana Books)