Shelterbelts is book of the year
Graphic novel the second graphic novel in four years to win top Manitoba Book Award
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/06/2023 (1183 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
For the second time in four years, a graphic novel has taken the top prize at the Manitoba Book Awards.
Jonathan Dyck’s Shelterbelts, published in May 2022 by Conundrum Press, won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award at the 2023 Manitoba Book Awards, which were announced Sunday.
Dyck also co-won the Eileen McTavish Sykes award for best first book (along with Linda Trinh’s children’s book The Secret of the Jade Bangle, illustrated by Clayton Nguyen) at the event, which took place at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location.
Shelterbelts portrays members of a rural Manitoba community grappling with faith, freedom, LGBTTQ+ issues.
Set in the fictional town of Hespeler, Shelterbelts portrays members of the rural Manitoba community grappling with faith, freedom, LGBTTQ+ issues and more.
Shelterbelts won the Nipper prize for emerging talent at the Doug Wright Awards for cartoonists in April.
The first graphic novel to win the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award was This Place: 150 Years Retold, an anthology that took the top prize in 2020.
David A. Robertson once again picked up prizes in multiple categories, winning two prizes and co-winning another two. Robertson won the Carol Shields Winnipeg book award for his adult novel The Theory of Crows, which was also up for the top prize, while his graphic novel Version Control (illustrated by Scott B. Henderson with colouring by Donovan Yaciuk, lettering by Andrew Thomas and cover and interior design by Jennifer Lum) won the Manuela Dias book design and illustration award in the graphic novel category.
Robertson’s middle-grade book The Stone Child, the third in his Misewa Saga, was a co-winner in the McNally Robinson book for young people award (older category) along with Lessons in Fusion by Primrose Madayag Knazan. And Robertson shared the Manitowapow award, which honours “Indigenous writers or oral performers who demonstrate excellence in writing, storytelling or spoken word and who also actively support Indigenous verbal arts in Manitoba,” with William Dumas and Joshua Whitehead.
Meeka Walsh’s essay collection Malleable Forms won the Alexander Kennedy Isbister award for non-fiction.
It had also been nominated for the book of the year prize, as had The Full Catastrophe by Méira Cook, which won the Margaret Laurence award for fiction.
For a full list of winners and nominees, see manitobabookawards.ca.
ben.sigurdson@winnipegfreepress.com
@bensigurdson
Ben Sigurdson
Literary editor, drinks writer
Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press‘s literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.
In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press’s editing team before being posted online or published in print. It’s part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Byggdin wins big at Atlantic Book Awards
Niverville-raised, East Coast-based author K.R. Byggdin took home the $30,000 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, the most lucrative of six prizes awarded at this year’s Atlantic Book Awards on June 7.
Byggdin won the award for their novel Wonder World, published by Winnipeg’s Enfield & Wizenty, an imprint of Great Plains Press. (Great Plains Press, formerly Great Plains Publications, announced its new name today. The new moniker “reflects our commitment to bringing the stories from our region, and Canada, to the world,” according to a press release).
Wonder World explores queer identity in an ultra-conservative setting. Isaac Funk, a 27-year-old queer man, is struggling financially and emotionally on the East Coast after moving there from a Mennonite town, Newfield, in rural Manitoba. When he leans of his Opa’s passing back on the Prairies, he returns and must decide whether to accept the responsibility of looking after Wonder World and stay in Newfield or sell the land and leave as he did before.
Ben Sigurdson
Literary editor, drinks writer
Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press‘s literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.
In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press’s editing team before being posted online or published in print. It’s part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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