Hambrock tops humour prize, nabs $25k award

Saskatoon’s Meredith Hambrock has won the 2026 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, and the $25,000 prize which accomapnies the accolade.

Hambrock’s novel She’s A Lamb! was published in April 2025 by ECW Press, and follows an actor who aspires to greatness but feels she is mired in the trappings of patriarchy — and examines the lengths she’ll go to to achieve her dreams.

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The runners-up for the prize were Mark Waddell for Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World and Susin Nielsen for Snap. Each receives a prize of $5,000.

The annual prize is named after the late Ontario author/humourist Stephen Leacock, whose writerly output included Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.

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Nashville author Ann Patchett has been awarded the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award by the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, presented to an author whose work “reflects the Prize’s mission of fostering peace, social justice, and global understanding.”

Patchett, who owns a bookstore in Nashville, is the author of books such as the PEN/Faulkner fiction prize winner Bel Canto and the 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist The Dutch House. Her most recent novel, Whistler, was published in June by HarperCollins.

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Prolific Winnipeg fantasy author S.M. (Sam) Beiko isn’t letting the summer literary lull get in the way of launching her new novel.

The Sleuth of Ferren City, Beiko’s third book of the Brindlewatch quintet of books aimed at young adults, launches Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Raven’s End Books, (1859 Portage Ave.).

Sleuth follows The Stars of Mount Quixx, the first book of the fantasy series, and the follow-up The Door in Lake Mallion. Other books by Beiko include the series The Realms of Ancient (Scion of the Fox, Children of the Bloodlands, The Brilliant Dark). She also co-hosts the Ballot Babes local politics podcast with Patty Wiens.

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McNally Robinson Booksellers’s Grant Park and Forks locations are once again two of the destinations in the month-long Where’s Waldo? promotion/contest.

Kicking off on July 1, the scavenger hunt for all ages is spread across 16 sites, including the two McNally locations, and prompts participants to track down Waldo at each location. Each site provides a stamp on a card for a Waldo sighting; complete the card by August 4 and enter to win a prize.

McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location is also encouraging scavengers to pop by the store on Saturday, July 4 to try and find the bespectacled, stripe-shirted scoundrel.

For a complete list of participating stops and for more information, see wfp.to/iMF.

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A book co-written by University of Winnipeg professor (and Free Press reviewer) Candida Rifkind has won the Comics Studies Society’s Charles Hatfield Book Prize for best scholarly work to advance the field of comics studies.

Published in June 2025 by Wilfred Laurier Press, Graphic Refuge: Visuality and Mobility in Refugee Comics, co-written with Dominic Davies of City St. George’s, Unciversity of London, was the judges’ unanimous choice for the prize, noting the book offers “a timely and necessary perspective on a field that is especially urgent given the current political moment.”

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The 2026 Indigenous Voices Awards has named Walpole Island First Nation author Melissa Powless Day and Saddle Lake author reuben quinn as winners of the English-language prizes for published work.

Powless Day won the poetry category for Bow Forged from Ash, published by Palimpsest Press, while quinn took the prose category for Kiskisomitok: To Remind Each and One Another, published by Talonbooks.

The ninth annual Indigenous Voices Awards were announced on June 21, National Indigenous Peoples Day, and were chosen by a nine-person jury. Powless Day and quinn each also received $5,000. The Indigenous Voices Awards also presents prizes in French, as well for unpublished poetry and prose in English. For the complete list of winners and finalists, see wfp.to/iMe.

winnipegfreepress.com/bensigurdson