Introducing our amazing 2021 judges!
Picture Book
Alice Kitts Memorial Award
Kari-Lynn Winters
Dr. Kari-Lynn Winters is a children's author, playwright, performer, and scholar. With over 27 books published, she has won the silver medal for the British Columbia Book Prize twice and has been nominated numerous times for readers’ choice awards such as the Forest of Reading, the Rainforest of Reading, and the Chocolate Lily Awards. Kari-Lynn holds a Full Professor position in Brock University ‘s Faculty of Education. She loves being in the classroom in any capacity, but especially when instructing as a teacher, or when presenting as an author. Kari-Lynn’s scholarly research interests include arts education, children’s literature, and embodied literacies. She lives in St. Catharines, Ontario with her two kids and three cats.
Fiction
Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize
Richard Cumyn
Richard Cumyn is the author of nine books of fiction, most recently The Sign for Migrant Soul (Great Plains, 2018). A past fiction editor of The Antigonish Review, he has been published widely in Canada in The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Grain, Prism International, and Event. He has been shortlisted twice for the ReLit Award, a finalist for a National Magazine Award (essay), and long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He has taught fiction at the Maritime Writers’ Workshop, read his work as part of the Canadian Literary Projects Collection Reading Series (Dalhousie) as well as the St. Jerome’s (Waterloo) and Lorenzo (UNBSJ) reading series, been writer in residence at St. Mary’s University and worked with emerging writers in the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia’s Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program. Richard lives in Edmonton, Alberta.
Photo by David Haas
Poetry
The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize
Isabella Wang
Isabella Wang is the author of the chapbook, On Forgetting a Language (Baseline Press 2019), and her full-length debut, Pebble Swing (Nightwood Editions, 2021). Among other recognitions, she was most recently shortlisted for Arc’s Poem of the Year award, The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Contest and Long-Poem Contest, and was the youngest writer to be shortlisted twice for The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Essay Contest. Her poetry and prose have appeared in over thirty literary journals including The Fiddlehead, Prism, and Prairie Fire, and three anthologies. She is an editor at Room magazine. Her current projects include two poetry manuscripts in-progress, Choreography of Forgetting, and My Epistolary Caesuras, as well as a second chapbook forthcoming with Above Ground Press (2022).
Nonfiction
WFNB Book Award for Non-Fiction
Julie Sedivy
Julie Sedivy is a language scientist, editor, and award-winning writer of nonfiction whose work crosses and recombines scientific and literary genres. Her work includes contributions to the Literary Review of Canada, Literary Hub, Nautilus, Discover, Scientific American, and Politico. Together with Rona Altrows, she co-edited Waiting: An Anthology of Essays. Her most recent book, Memory Speaks, is a scientific memoir about losing and reclaiming a native tongue, and she is currently at work on a collection of essays to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. She makes her home on the achingly beautiful lands of Treaty 7.
Previous judges of the New Brunswick Book Awards
2020
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Alice Kitts Memorial Award
Frieda Wishinsky​
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Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize:
Mark Sampson​
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The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize
Yusuf Saadi
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WFNB Book Award for Nonfiction
Naomi Lewis
2019
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Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize
Amy Jones
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The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize
D.A. Lockhart
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WFNB Book Award for Nonfiction
Richard Kelly Kemick
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2018
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Alice Kitts Memorial Award
Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang
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Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize:
David Huebert
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The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize
Evelyn Lau
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WFNB Book Award for Nonfiction
Donna Kane
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2017
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Alice Kitts Memorial Award
Sheree Fitch
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Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize:
Angie Abdou
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The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize
Susan Gillis
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WFNB Book Award for Nonfiction
Andrew Westoll
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2016
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Alice Kitts Memorial Award
Helaine Becker
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Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize:
Rabindranath Maharaj
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The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize
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WFNB Book Award for Nonfiction
Myrl Couter
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2015
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Mrs. Dunster's Fiction Prize:
Lisa Moore
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The Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize
Anita Lahey
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WFNB Book Award for Nonfiction
Jane Silcott
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