Authors Darrel J. McLeod and John Vaillant are among the eight writers named winners of the 2024 BC and Yukon Book Prizes.

The winners of the annual awards, now in their 40th year, were announced at a gala in Vancouver on Sept. 28. The awards recognize the work of authors in British Columbia and Yukon.

This year’s winners were selected from shortlists announced in April.

The Ethel Wilson Fiction prize was awarded posthumously to Darrel J. McLeod’s A Season in Chezgh’un.  Darrel J. McLeod, who won a Governor-General’s Award for his memoir Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age, died after a brief sudden illness in August. A Season in Chezgh’un was his only novel. 

John Vaillant’s internationally awarded Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast won the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and Jess Housty’s collection Crushed Wild Mint took home two awards, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award.

In addition to the eight annual awards, two awards were also given this year to honour writers for their body of work and contributions to the literary community.

Keith Maillard, the award-winning author of 15 novels, a book of poetry, and two memoirs, was awarded the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence.

Lhù’áán Mân Ye Shäw, the Kluane First Nation Elders, were awarded the Borealis Prize, the Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution. The elders have contributed to the storytelling, literary, and publishing communities for decades, and worked for six years with editors to bring oral storytelling traditions to book form with Lhù’ààn Mân Keyí Dań Kwánje Nààtsat: Kluane Lake Country People Speak Strong. The book was published last year by Figure 1 Publishing and won the 2023 Indigenous History Book Prize.

The winners are:

Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for literary fiction

• A Season in Chezgh’un by Darrel J. McLeod (Douglas & McIntyre)

Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize

• Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast by John Vaillant (Vintage Canada)

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize

• Crushed Wild Mint by Jess Housty (Nightwood Editions)

Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize

• The Best Loved Boat: The Princess Maquinna by Ian Kennedy (Harbour Publishing)

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize

• Hopeless in Hope by Wanda John-Kehewin (HighWater Press)

Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize

• My Baba’s Garden by Jordan Scott and Sydney Smith, ill. (Neal Porter Books)

Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes

• Becoming a Matriarch by Helen Knott (Knopf Canada)

Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award

• Crushed Wild Mint by Jess Housty (Nightwood Editions)