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 most lucrative non-fiction prize, the winner receives a prize of CA$60,000 and all finalists receive CA$5,000.[1][2]
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,[3] when philanthropist and former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Hilary Weston was announced as the award's new sponsor.[1]
Prior to Weston's patronage of the award, the prize was CA$15,000 for the winner and CA$2,000 for the finalists.
Nominees and winners
Year | Author | Title | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
1997 | Ernest Hillen | Small Mercies: A Boy After War | Winner | [4] |
Charlotte Gray | Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King | Shortlist | [5] | |
John Bentley Mays | Power in the Blood: Land, Memory, and a Southern Family | Shortlist | ||
Ruth Teichroeb | Flowers on My Grave | Shortlist | ||
Eileen Whitfield | Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood | Shortlist | ||
1998 | Rudy Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson | Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman | Winner | [6] |
Michael Ignatieff | Isaiah Berlin: A Life | Shortlist | [7] | |
David Manicom | Progeny of Ghosts: Travels in Russia and the Old Empire | Shortlist | ||
Linda Spalding | The Follow | Shortlist | ||
Charles Wilkins | The Circus at the Edge of the Earth | Shortlist | ||
1999 | Modris Eksteins | Walking Since Daybreak: A Story of Eastern Europe, World War II and the Heart of our Century | Winner | [8] |
Robert Bringhurst | Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World | Shortlist | [9] | |
Jacalyn Duffin | History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction | Shortlist | ||
Moira Farr | After Daniel: A Suicide Survivor’s Tale | Shortlist | ||
Wayne Johnston | Baltimore’s Mansion: A Memoir | Shortlist | ||
2000 | Erna Paris | Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History | Winner | [10] |
Donald Harman Akenson | Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus | Shortlist | [11] | |
Hugh Brody | The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers and the Shaping of the World | Shortlist | ||
Taras Grescoe | Sacré Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec | Shortlist | ||
John Stackhouse | Out of Poverty: And into Something More Comfortable | Shortlist | ||
2001 | Clark Blaise | Time Lord | Winner | [12] |
Kevin Major | As Near to Heaven by Sea | Shortlist | [13] | |
Heather Pringle | The Mummy Congress | Shortlist | ||
Carol Shields | Jane Austen | Shortlist | ||
Jack Todd | The Taste of Metal: A Deserter’s Story | Shortlist | ||
2002 | Jake MacDonald | Houseboat Chronicles: Notes from a Life in Shield Country | Winner | [14] |
Katherine Ashenburg | The Mourner’s Dance: What We Do When People Die | Shortlist | [15] | |
Andrew Clark | Keen Soldier: The Execution of Second World War Private Harold Pringle | Shortlist | ||
Marni Jackson | Pain: The Fifth Vital Sign | Shortlist | ||
Lorie Miseck | Promise of Salt | Shortlist | ||
2003 | Brian Fawcett | Virtual Clearcut, or The Way Things Are in My Hometown | Winner | [16] |
Mark Abley | Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages | Shortlist | [17] | |
J. Edward Chamberlin | If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground | Shortlist | ||
Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle | Sahara: A Natural History | Shortlist | ||
Taras Grescoe | The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists | Shortlist | ||
2004 | Elaine Dewar | The Second Tree: Of Clones, Chimeras, and Quests for Immortality | Winner | [18] |
Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall | Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown | Shortlist | [19] | |
Trevor Herriot | Jacob’s Wound: A Search for the Spirit of Wildness | Shortlist | ||
Patrick Lane | There is a Season: A Memoir in a Garden | Shortlist | ||
Charles Montgomery | The Last Heathen: Encounters With Ghosts and Ancestors in Melanesia | Shortlist | ||
2005 | John Vaillant | The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed | Winner | [20] |
Rebecca Godfrey | Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk | Shortlist | [21] | |
Stephen Lewis | Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa | Shortlist | ||
J.B. MacKinnon | Dead Man in Paradise | Shortlist | ||
2006 | Dragan Todorovic | The Book of Revenge | Winner | [22] |
Charlotte Gray | Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell | Shortlist | [23] | |
Barbara Kingscote | Ride the Rising Wind: One Woman’s Journey Across Canada | Shortlist | ||
Noah Richler | This is My Country, What’s Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada | Shortlist | ||
Rudy Wiebe | Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest | Shortlist | ||
2007 | Anna Porter | Kasztner's Train: The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust | Winner | [24] |
Katherine Ashenburg | The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History | Shortlist | [25] | |
Tim Bowling | The Lost Coast: Salmon, Memory and the Death of Wild Culture | Shortlist | ||
Barry Gough | Fortune’s a River: The Collision of Empires in Northwest America | Shortlist | ||
Douglas Hunter | God’s Mercies: Rivalry, Betrayal and the Dream of Discovery | Shortlist | ||
2008 | Taras Grescoe | Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood | Winner | [26] |
Carl Honoré | Under Pressure: Rescuing Childhood from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting | Shortlist | [27] | |
Mark Kingwell | Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City | Shortlist | ||
Margaret Visser | The Gift of Thanks: The Roots, Persistence and Paradoxical Meanings of a Social Ritual | Shortlist | ||
Russell Wangersky | Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself | Shortlist | ||
2009 | Brian Brett | Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life | Winner | [28] |
Wade Davis | The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World | Shortlist | [29] | |
Trevor Herriot | Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds | Shortlist | ||
Erika Ritter | The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships | Shortlist | ||
Eric Siblin | The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece | Shortlist | ||
2010 | James FitzGerald | What Disturbs Our Blood: A Son's Quest to Redeem the Past | Winner | [30] |
Ross King | Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven | Shortlist | [31] | |
Sarah Leavitt | Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother and Me | Shortlist | ||
John Theberge and Mary Theberge | The Ptarmigan's Dilemma: An Exploration into How Life Organizes and Supports Itself | Shortlist | ||
Merrily Weisbord | The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das | Shortlist | ||
2011 | Charles Foran | Mordecai: The Life & Times | Winner | [32] |
Charlotte Gill | Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe | Shortlist | [33] | |
Richard Gwyn | Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times; Volume Two: 1867-1891 | Shortlist | ||
Grant Lawrence | Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nudist Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound | Shortlist | ||
Ray Robertson | Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live | Shortlist | ||
2012 | Candace Savage | A Geography of Blood: Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape | Winner | [34] |
Kamal Al-Solaylee | Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes | Shortlist | [34] | |
Modris Eksteins | Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery, and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age | Shortlist | ||
Taras Grescoe | Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile | Shortlist | ||
JJ Lee | The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit | Shortlist | ||
2013 | Graeme Smith | The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan | Winner | [35] |
Thomas King | The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America | Shortlist | [36] | |
J.B. MacKinnon | The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be | Shortlist | ||
Andrew Steinmetz | This Great Escape: The Case of Michael Paryla | Shortlist | ||
Priscila Uppal | Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother | Shortlist | ||
2014 | Naomi Klein | This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate | Winner | [37] |
Susan Delacourt | Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them | Shortlist | [37] | |
Charles Montgomery | Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design | Shortlist | ||
Paula Todd | Extreme Mean: Trolls, Bullies, and Predators Online | Shortlist | ||
Kathleen Winter | Boundless: Tracing Land and Dream in a New Northwest Passage | Shortlist | ||
2015 | Rosemary Sullivan | Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva | Winner | [38] |
Eliott Behar | Tell it to the World: International Justice and the Secret Campaign to Hide Mass Murder in Kosovo | Shortlist | [39] | |
Douglas Coupland | Kitten Clone: Inside Alcatel-Lucent | Shortlist | ||
Dean Jobb | Empire of Deception: From Chicago to Nova Scotia – The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation | Shortlist | ||
Lynette Loeppky | Cease: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Desire | Shortlist | ||
2016 | Deborah Campbell | Disappearance in Damascus: A Story of Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War | Winner | [40] |
Ian Brown | Sixty: A Diary of My Sixty-First Year: The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning? | Shortlist | [41] | |
Matti Friedman | Pumpkinflowers: An Israeli Soldier’s Story | Shortlist | ||
Ross King | Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies | Shortlist | ||
Sonja Larsen | Red Star Tattoo: My Life as a Girl Revolutionary | Shortlist | ||
2017 | James Maskalyk | Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine | Winner | [42] |
Ivan Coyote | Tomboy Survival Guide | Shortlist | [43] | |
Kyo Maclear | Birds Art Life: A Field Guide to the Small and Significant | Shortlist | ||
Carol Off | All We Leave Behind: A Reporter's Journey into the Lives of Others | Shortlist | ||
Tanya Talaga | Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City | Shortlist | ||
2018 | Elizabeth Hay | All Things Consoled: A Daughter’s Memoir | Winner | [44] |
Will Aitken | Antigone Undone: Juliette Binoche, Anne Carson, Ivo Van Hove, and the Art of Resistance | Shortlist | [45] | |
Terese Marie Mailhot | Heart Berries | Shortlist | ||
Judi Rever | In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front | Shortlist | ||
Lindsay Wong | The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family | Shortlist | ||
2019 | Jenny Heijun Wills | Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related | Winner | [46] |
Alicia Elliott | Mind Spread Out on the Ground | Shortlist | [47] | |
Anna Mehler Paperny | Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person | Shortlist | ||
Tanya Talaga | All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward | Shortlist | ||
Ayelet Tsabari | The Art of Leaving | Shortlist | ||
2020 | Jessica J. Lee | Two Trees Make a Forest: Travels Among Taiwan’s Mountains and Coasts in Search of My Family’s Past | Winner | [48] |
Lorna Crozier | Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats) | Shortlist | [48] | |
Steven Heighton | Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos | Shortlist | ||
Tessa McWatt | Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging | Shortlist | ||
David Neel | The Way Home | Shortlist | ||
2021 | Tomson Highway | Permanent Astonishment | Winner | [49] |
Jordan Abel | Nishga | Shortlist | [50] | |
Ken Haigh | On Foot to Canterbury | Shortlist | ||
Darrel J. McLeod | Peyakow | Shortlist | ||
Ian Williams | Disorientation | Shortlist | ||
2022 | Dan Werb | The Invisible Siege: The Rise of Coronaviruses and the Search for a Cure | Winner | [51] |
Geoff Dembicki | The Petroleum Papers: Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change | Shortlist | [52] | |
Tara McGowan-Ross | Nothing Will Be Different: A Memoir | Shortlist | ||
Debra Thompson | The Long Road Home: On Blackness and Belonging | Shortlist | ||
Joshua Whitehead | Making Love with the Land | Shortlist | ||
2023 | Christina Sharpe | Ordinary Notes | Winner | [53] |
Jamal Saeed | My Road from Damascus | Shortlist | [54] | |
Angela Sterritt | Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls | |||
Emily Urquhart | Ordinary Wonder Tales | |||
John Vaillant | Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World |
References
- ^ a b "Writers' Trust non-fiction prize bumped up to $60,000" Archived 2011-08-11 at the Wayback Machine. The Globe and Mail, May 11, 2011.
- ^ M.A. Orthofer, "Writers' Trust of Canada Prize for Non-Fiction " Archived 2011-10-23 at the Wayback Machine, complete review, 26 October 2011.
- ^ "Nominees for Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-Fiction announced" Archived 2013-01-04 at archive.today. National Post, September 20, 2011.
- ^ "Literary Prizes Awarded". Ottawa Citizen, January 20, 1998.
- ^ "Govier takes Engel prize". The Globe and Mail, November 20, 1997.
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- ^ "Butala wins Engel prize". The Globe and Mail, November 20, 1998.
- ^ Aida Edamariam, "Toronto historian, Calgary novelist honoured by their peers: Writers' trust awards". National Post, March 30, 2000.
- ^ "Nominations announced". The Globe and Mail, February 9, 2000.
- ^ "Writers' Trust awards named: Prizes mark Canadian achievements". Sudbury Star, March 6, 2001.
- ^ "Finalists named for Writer's Trust prizes". Niagara Falls Review, February 3, 2001.
- ^ Judy Stoffman, "Seven authors win big prizes ; Levine, Blaise, Hay among those honoured in T.O.". Toronto Star, March 6, 2002.
- ^ "Double nominations in Writers' Trust awards". The Telegram, February 17, 2002.
- ^ "Manitoulin author among award winners". Sault Star, March 8, 2003.
- ^ "Finalists named for Writers' Trust Awards". The Globe and Mail, February 12, 2003.
- ^ Anne-Marie Tobin, "Writers from across Canada receive literary awards". The Western Star, March 6, 2004.
- ^ Judy Stoffman, "Overlooked books make shortlist". Toronto Star, February 4, 2004.
- ^ Judy Stoffman, "Engel 'knocked out' by honour; Sleuth writer cops Matt Cohen prize Seven, in all, feted by Writers Trust". Toronto Star, March 10, 2005.
- ^ "Munro, Newman among finals for literary awards". Peterborough Examiner, February 5, 2005.
- ^ "Joseph Boyden, John Vaillant glean Writers' Trust Awards". Sault Star, March 2, 2006.
- ^ "Crummey in running for national prize". The Telegram, February 3, 2006.
- ^ "N.L. writer's 'Inside' wins fiction prize". Telegraph-Journal, March 8, 2007.
- ^ Pat Donnelly, "Hage, Behrens face off again". Montreal Gazette, February 8, 2007.
- ^ James Adams, "Lawrence Hill, Anna Porter win Writers' Trust Awards". The Globe and Mail, April 2, 2008.
- ^ "Writer's Trust contenders named". Harbour City Star, March 1, 2008.
- ^ Mark Medley, "Winnipeg novelist wins Writers' Trust Fiction Prize; Miriam Toews takes $25,000 award for her road-trip story The Flying Troutmans". Winnipeg Free Press, November 18, 2008.
- ^ "Who's in the running for some of this year's big awards". Montreal Gazette, October 25, 2008.
- ^ Mark Medley, "Ontario-born B.C. writer Annabel Lyon wins fiction prize for The Golden Mean". CanWest News Service, November 24, 2009.
- ^ "Munro, Coupland on fiction shortlist for Writer's Trust prizes". Edmonton Journal, October 1, 2009.
- ^ Mark Medley, "Emma Donoghue wins Writers' Trust Fiction Prize". Vancouver Sun, November 3, 2010.
- ^ John Barber, "Emma Donoghue, Kathleen and Michael Winter among finalists for Writers' Trust". The Globe and Mail, September 29, 2010.
- ^ Mark Medley, "Patrick deWitt wins Writers' Trust Fiction Prize". Postmedia News, November 2, 2011.
- ^ Mark Medley, "Non-fiction award has words from a new sponsor; Finalists revealed; $80,000 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize". National Post, September 21, 2011.
- ^ a b Quill, Greg (November 12, 2012). "Candace Savage's prairie meditation takes Writers' Trust Nonfiction Prize". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on December 11, 2013.
- ^ Mark Medley, "Afghan war memoir honoured; Smith wins Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction". Vancouver Sun, October 22, 2013.
- ^ Paul Irish, "Writers' Trust releases nonfiction short list: Thomas King's The Inconvenient Indian makes list of five". Toronto Star, September 19, 2013.
- ^ a b Deborah Dundas, "Naomi Klein wins Hilary Weston prize". Toronto Star, October 15, 2014.
- ^ Medley, Mark (October 6, 2015). "Biography of Stalin's daughter wins Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on August 16, 2022.
- ^ Robertson, Becky (September 16, 2015). "Douglas Coupland, Rosemary Sullivan among Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-fiction finalists". Quill and Quire. Archived from the original on August 10, 2022.
- ^ Bethune, Brian (November 3, 2016). "Rogers Writers' Trust: Celebrating the 2016 winners". Maclean's. Archived from the original on October 22, 2022.
- ^ "Ian Brown, Ross King among finalists for Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction". Canadian Press, September 28, 2016.
- ^ Beattie, Steven W. (November 15, 2017). "David Chariandy, Billie Livingston, and Diane Schoemperlen among the winners at the 2017 Writers' Trust awards". Quill and Quire. Archived from the original on April 22, 2019.
- ^ Medley, Mark (September 20, 2017). "Hilary Weston Prize shortlist announced". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on March 19, 2022.
- ^ "Kathy Page, Elizabeth Hay among Writers' Trust winners". Toronto Sun, November 8, 2018.
- ^ "Writers' Trust to hand out total $260,000 in prizes for literary excellence". National Post, November 7, 2018.
- ^ Dundas, Deborah (November 5, 2019). "Andre Alexis, Jenny Heijun Wills are big winners at Writers' Trust Awards". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on November 6, 2019.
- ^ van Koeverden, Jane (September 17, 2019). "Tanya Talaga, Alicia Elliott shortlisted for $60K Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction". CBC Books. Archived from the original on December 5, 2022.
- ^ a b Takeuchi, Craig (September 19, 2020). "Gil Adamson, Jessica J. Lee win Writers' Trust literary prizes". Now. Archived from the original on January 16, 2022.
- ^ van Koeverden, Jane (November 3, 2021). "Katherena Vermette, Tomson Highway and Cherie Dimaline among winners at 2021 Writers' Trust Awards". CBC Books. Archived from the original on November 5, 2021.
- ^ Qiao, Vicky (September 15, 2021). "Jordan Abel & Ian Williams among five finalists for $60K Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction". CBC Books. Archived from the original on October 10, 2022.
- ^ Dundas, Deborah (November 2, 2022). "Writers' Trust 2022 book award winners collect $270,000 in prizes". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on November 3, 2022.
- ^ "Joshua Whitehead among finalists for $60K Writers' Trust non-fiction prize". Toronto Star. September 21, 2022. Archived from the original on November 8, 2022.
- ^ Nicole Thompson, "Kai Thomas wins Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for debut novel". Toronto Star, November 21, 2023.
- ^ Brad Wheeler, "Shortlist for $75,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction includes past winner John Vaillant, scholar Christina Sharpe". The Globe and Mail, September 20, 2023.