Andre Alexis (photo: Hannah Zoe Davidson)

The longlists for the 2016 Sunburst Awards for excellence in Canadian literature of the fantastic have been revealed, and familiar nominees like Andrew Pyper, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Margaret Atwood round out a list that includes last year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize winner André Alexis, Kenneth Oppel, and Heather O’Neill.

This year features an inaugural prize for best short story. Each winner will receive a Sunburst medallion and a $1,000 purse. Shortlists will be announced July 5, and winners, Sept. 14.

The nominees for this year’s awards are:

Adult Fiction

• André Alexis, Fifteen Dogs (Coach House Books)
• Samuel Archibald, Donald Winkler, trans., Arvida (Biblioasis)
• Margaret Atwood, The Heart Goes Last (McClelland & Stewart)
• Andrew Battershill, Pillow (Coach House)
• Rebecca Bradley, Cadon, Hunter (self-published)
• Matt Cahill, The Society of Experience (Wolsak & Wynn)
• Jill Ciment, Act of God (Pantheon)
• Alain Farah, Lazer Laderhendler, trans., Ravenscrag (House of Anansi Press)
• Katherine Fawcett, The Little Washer of Sorrows (Thistledown Press)
• Gemma Files, Experimental Film (Chizine Publications)
• Alexandra Grigorescu, Cauchemar (ECW Press)
• Lisa L. Hannett, Lament for the Afterlife (Chizine)
• D. J. McIntosh, The Angel of Eden (Penguin Canada)
• Jamie McLachlan, Mind of the Phoenix (Penner Publishing)
• Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Signal to Noise (Solaris)
• Heather O’Neill, Daydreams of Angels (HarperCollins Canada)
• Andrew Pyper, The Damned (Simon & Schuster Canada)
• Simone St. James, The Other Side of Midnight (New American Library)
• Carsten Stroud, The Reckoning (Penguin Canada)
• Robert Charles Wilson, The Affinities (Tor Books)
• A.C. Wise, The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again (Lethe Press)

YA Fiction

• Leah Bobet, An Inheritance of Ashes (Scholastic Canada)
• David Carroll, Sight Unseen (Scholastic)
• Jason Chabot, Above (HarperTrophy)
• Charis Cotter, The Swallow: A Ghost Story (Tundra Books)
• Mikaela Everett, The Unquiet (HarperCollins Canada)
• Melinda Friesen, Enslavement (Rebelight)
• Kallie George, Clover’s Luck: The Magic Animal Adoption Agency (Book 1) (HarperCollins)
• Fonda Lee, Zeroboxer (Flux Books)
• Kenneth Oppel, The Nest (S&S)
• Carol Anne Shaw, Hannah and the Wild Woods (Ronsdale Press)
• Neil Smith, Boo (Knopf Canada)
• Allan Stratton, The Dogs (Scholastic)
• Caitlin Sweet, The Flame in the Maze (Chizine)
• Robert J. Wiersema, Black Feathers (HarperCollins)

Short Story

• Karen Abrahamson, “With One Shoe” (Playground of Lost Toys, Exile Editions)
• Charlotte Ashley, “La Héron” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2015)
• Rebecca Campbell, “The Glad Hosts” (Lackington’s Magazine, Issue 7)
• Evelyn Deshane, “Carnival of Colours” (Only Disconnect, Summer 2015, Third Flatiron Publishing)
• Mike Donoghue, “Stuck in the Past” (Abyss & Apex, Issue 54)
• David J. Fuller, “The Harsh Light of Morning” (Wrestling With Gods: Tesseracts Eighteen, EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy)
• Mark Hill, “The Zzzombie Apocalypse” (The Time It Happened, Spring 2015, Third Flatiron)
• Patrick Johanneson, “Person to Person” (Daily Science Fiction)
• Catherine A. MacLeod, “Hide and Seek” (Playground of  Lost Toys, Exile)
• Silvia Moreno-Garcia, “Lacrimosa” (Nightmare Magazine, Issue 38)
• Dominik Parisien, “Goodbye is a Mouthful of Water” (Playground of Lost Toys, Exile)
• Dominik Parisien, “Spider Moves the World” (Lackington’s Magazine, Issue 6)
• Kelly Robson, “Two-Year Man” (Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 2015)
• Holly Schofield, “Two Steps Forward” (Scarecrow, World Weaver Press)
• Peter Wendt, “Get the Message” (Second Contacts, Bundoran Press)