Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction

The Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by the Writers' Trust of Canada to the best work of non-fiction by a Canadian writer.

Canada's richest non-fiction prize, the winner receives a prize of CAD60,000 and all finalists receive CAD5,000.

Sponsorship history

First established in 1997, the award's original corporate sponsor was Viacom. Pearson Canada, an educational book publishing company, took over the award in 1999, and Nereus Financial, a stock brokerage, became the sponsor from 2006 to 2008. After Nereus dropped its sponsorship, the award had no corporate sponsor until 2011, when philanthropist and former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Hilary Weston was announced as the award's new sponsor.

Prior to Weston's patronage of the award, the prize was CAD15,000 for the winner and CAD2,000 for the finalists.

Nominees and winners

Blue Ribbon () = winner

1997

• Ernest Hillen, Small Mercies: A Boy After War
• Charlotte Gray, Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King
• John Bentley Mays, Power in the Blood: Land, Memory, and a Southern Family
• Ruth Teichroeb, Flowers on My Grave
• Eileen Whitfield, Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood

1998

• Rudy Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson, Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman
• Michael Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin: A Life
• David Manicom, Progeny of Ghosts: Travels in Russia and the Old Empire
• Linda Spalding, The Follow
• Charles Wilkins, The Circus at the Edge of the Earth

1999

• Modris Eksteins, Walking Since Daybreak: A Story of Eastern Europe, World War II and the Heart of our Century
• Robert Bringhurst, A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World
• Jacalyn Duffin, History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction
• Moira Farr, After Daniel: A Suicide Survivor’s Tale
• Wayne Johnston, Baltimore’s Mansion: A Memoir

2000

• Erna Paris, Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History
• Donald Harman Akenson, Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus
• Hugh Brody, The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers and the Shaping of the World
• Taras Grescoe, Sacré Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec
• John Stackhouse, Out of Poverty: And into Something More Comfortable

2001

• Clark Blaise, Time Lord
• Kevin Major, As Near to Heaven by Sea
• Heather Pringle, The Mummy Congress
• Carol Shields, Jane Austen
• Jack Todd, The Taste of Metal: A Deserter’s Story

2002

• Jake MacDonald, Houseboat Chronicles: Notes from a Life in Shield Country
• Katherine Ashenburg, The Mourner’s Dance: What We Do When People Die
• Andrew Clark, A Keen Soldier: The Execution of Second World War Private Harold Pringle
• Marni Jackson, Pain: The Fifth Vital Sign
• Lorie Miseck, A Promise of Salt

2003

• Brian Fawcett, Virtual Clearcut, or The Way Things Are in My Hometown
• Mark Abley, Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages
• J. Edward Chamberlin, If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground
• Taras Grescoe, The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists
• Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle, Sahara: A Natural History

2004

• Elaine Dewar, The Second Tree: Of Clones, Chimeras, and Quests for Immortality
• Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown
• Trevor Herriot, Jacob’s Wound: A Search for the Spirit of Wildness
• Patrick Lane, There is a Season: A Memoir in a Garden
• Charles Montgomery, The Last Heathen: Encounters With Ghosts and Ancestors in Melanesia

2005

• John Vaillant, The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed
• Rebecca Godfrey, Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk
• Stephen Lewis, Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa
• J.B. MacKinnon, Dead Man in Paradise

2006

• Dragan Todorovic, The Book of Revenge
• Charlotte Gray, Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell
• Barbara Kingscote, Ride the Rising Wind: One Woman’s Journey Across Canada
• Noah Richler, This is My Country, What’s Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada
• Rudy Wiebe, Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest

2007

• Anna Porter, Kasztner's Train: The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust
• Katherine Ashenburg, The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History
• Tim Bowling, The Lost Coast: Salmon, Memory and the Death of Wild Culture
• Barry Gough, Fortune’s a River: The Collision of Empires in Northwest America
• Douglas Hunter, God’s Mercies: Rivalry, Betrayal and the Dream of Discovery

2008

• Taras Grescoe, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood
• Carl Honoré, Under Pressure: Rescuing Childhood from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting
• Mark Kingwell, Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City
• Margaret Visser, The Gift of Thanks: The Roots, Persistence and Paradoxical Meanings of a Social Ritual
• Russell Wangersky, Burning Down the House: Fighting Fire and Losing Myself

2009

• Brian Brett, Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life
• Wade Davis, The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World
• Trevor Herriot, Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds
• Erika Ritter, The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships
• Eric Siblin, The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece

2010

• James FitzGerald, What Disturbs Our Blood: A Son's Quest to Redeem the Past
• Ross King, Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven
• Sarah Leavitt, Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother and Me
• John Theberge and Mary Theberge, The Ptarmigan's Dilemma: An Exploration into How Life Organizes and Supports Itself
• Merrily Weisbord, The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das

2011

• Charles Foran, Mordecai: The Life & Times
• Charlotte Gill, Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe
• Richard Gwyn, Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times; Volume Two: 1867-1891
• Grant Lawrence, Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nudist Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound
• Ray Robertson, Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live

External links

• Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction