Announcing “The Very Best!” Book Awards Longlist for 2021!

The Miramichi Reader’s popular “The Very Best!” Book Awards (“the Vee-Bahs”) are very different for 2021. To simplify things, we have only four categories: Novels, Non-Fiction, Short Fiction, and Poetry. From the following longlist, our jury (this is new, too!) will pare the nominees down to one winner and one honorable mention in each category. (The lists below are in no particular order.)

The winners will be announced on June 17th, 2021.

Novels (Jury member Janice Landry, author of Silver Linings: Stories Of Gratitude, Resiliency, And Growth Through Adversity)

• Journey to the Hopewell Star by Hannah D. State (Glowing Light Press)
• Dark August by Katie Tallo (Harper Paperbacks)
• Brighten the Corner Where you Are by Carol Bruneau (Vagrant Press) 
• This Cleaving and This Burning by J. A. Wainwright (Guernica Editions)
• A Diary in the Age of Water by Nina Munteanu (Inanna Publications)
• The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue (Harper Avenue)
• Constant Nobody by Michelle Butler Hallett (Goose Lane Editions)
• Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham (Simon & Schuster Canada)
• Instructor by Beth Follett (Breakwater Books)
• Throw Down Your Shadows by Deborah Hemmings (Nimbus Publishing)
• We, Jane by Aimee Wall (Book*hug Press)
• Polar Vortex by Shani Mootoo (Book*hug Press)

Short Fiction (Jury member: Naomi MacKinnon, Owner of Consumed by Ink)

• The End of Me by John Gould (Freehand Books)
• Swimmers in Winter by Faye Guenther (Invisible Publishing)
• Seeking Shade by Frances Boyle (Porcupine’s Quill)
• Fontainebleu by Madeline Sonik (Anvil Press)
• Music from a Strange Planet by Barbara Black (Caitlin Press)
• The Four-Faced Liar by P. W. Bridgman (Ekstasis Editions)

Poetry (Jury member: Shane Neilson, author of the poetry collection New Brunswick)

• Queen and Carcass by Anna Van Valkenburg (Anvil Press)
• Pineapple Express by Evelyn Lau (Anvil Press)
• This Is How It Is by Sharon King-Campbell (Breakwater Books)
• While Crossing the Field by Deborah Banks (Pottersfield Press)
• Mere Extinction by Evie Christie (ECW Press)
• If You Discover A Fire by Shaun Robinson (Brick Books)
• Strangers by Rob Taylor (Biblioasis)

Non-Fiction (Jury member: James M. Fisher, Editor-in Chief)

• Tiff: A Life Of Timothy Findley By Sherill Grace (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
• Blood in the Water by Silver Donald Cameron (Penguin)
• What the Oceans Remember: Searching For Belonging And Home By Sonja Boon (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
• Daring, Devious, And Deadly: True Tale Of Crime And Justice From Nova Scotia’s Past By Dean Jobb (Pottersfield Press)
• Small, Broke, And Kind Of Dirty: Affirmations For The Real World By Hana Shafi (Book*Hug Press)
• Rough And Plenty: A Memorial By Raymond A. Rogers (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
• No Place for a Woman by Anthony Berger (Breakwater)
• The Borders of Normal: A Clinical Psychiatrist De-Stigmatizes Paranormal Phenomena by Manuel Matas M.D.
• Restigouche: The Long Run of the River by Philip Lee (Goose Lane Editions) 
• Lunging In The Underbrush – A Life Lived Backward By David Homel (Linda Leith Publishing)
• Gone Viking: A Travel Saga by Bill Arnott (Rocky Mountain Books)