The High Plains Book Awards announced the finalists for its 2022 prizes.

The awards recognize regional authors and literary works that examine and reflect life on the High Plains – Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan in Canada, and the U.S. states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas.

This year, 13 Canadian titles were shortlisted in nine of the 12 categories. The children’s book list is entirely Canadian and Jillian Horton’s We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing is nominated in three categories.

The shortlisted Canadian titles are:

Children’s Book

• The Undercover Book List by Colleen Nelson (Pajama Press)
• The Mystery of the Giant Kohlrabi by Sharon Plumb
• Dear Peter, Dear Ulla by Barbara Nickel (Thistledown Press)

Creative Nonfiction

• We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing by Jillian Horton (Harper Perennial)

First Book

• Miraculous Sickness by ky perraun (At Bay Press)

Indigenous Writer

• 20.12m: A Short Story Collection of a Life Lived as a Road Allowance Métis by Arnolda Dufour Bowes (Gabriel Dumont Institute Press)
• Kitotam by John Brady McDonald (Radiant Press)

Medicine & Science

• We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing by Jillian Horton (Harper Perennial)
• The Scenic Geology of Alberta: A Roadside Touring and Hiking Guide by Dale Leckie (Broken Poplars)

Nonfiction

• We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing by Jillian Horton  (Harper Perennial)

Poetry

• awâsis—kinky and disheveled by Louise B. Halfe – Sky Dancer (Brick Books)

Woman Writer

• Ancestors: Indigenous Peoples of Western Canada in Historic Photographs by Sarah Carter and Inez Lightning (University of Alberta Press)

Young Adult

• The Life and Deaths of Frankie D. by Colleen Nelson (Dundurn Press)
• When You Least Expect It by Lorna Schultz Nicholson (Red Deer Press)

The winners will be announced on October 8 in Billings, Montana.