Here are the nominees for this year’s B.C. Book Prizes, announced this morning. Up for grabs is a total of $19,000 in cash awards and, of course, plenty of prestige. The winners will be revealed at a gala ceremony on April 30 at Government House in Victoria. In the meantime, on March 23, we’ll find out who’ll be receiving the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence, won last year by Betty Keller.

Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, awarded to the author of the best work of fiction: 

•    Alix Hawley, All True Not a Lie in It (Knopf Canada)
•    Pauline Holdstock, The Hunter and the Wild Girl (Goose Lane)
•    Irina Kovalyova, Specimen (House of Anansi)
•    Nasreen Pejvack, Amity (Inanna)
•    Anakana Schofield, Martin John (Biblioasis)

Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, recognizing the author(s) of the book that contributes most to the enjoyment and understanding of British Columbia:

•    Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat, Soviet Princeton: Slim Evans and the 1932–33 Miners' Strike (New Star)
•    Gwen Curry, Tod Inlet: A Healing Place (Rocky Mountain)
•    Derrick Stacey Denholm, Ground-Truthing: Reimagining the Indigenous Rainforests of BC's North Coast (Caitlin)
•    Briony Penn, The Real Thing: The Natural History of Ian McTaggart Cowan (Rocky Mountain)
•    John Thistle, Resettling the Range: Animals, Ecologies, and Human Communities in British Columbia (UBC Press)

Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, to the author of the best original nonfiction literary work:

•    Brian Brett, Tuco: The Parrot, the Others, and a Scattershot World (Greystone)
•    Briony Penn, The Real Thing: The Natural History of Ian McTaggart Cowan (Rocky Mountain)
•    Lori Shenher, That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away (Greystone)
•    Maria Tippett, Made in British Columbia: Eight Ways of Making Culture (Harbour)
•    Emily Urquhart, Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family and the Mystery of Our Hidden Genes (HarperCollins)

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, awarded to the author of the best work of poetry:
 
•    Ali Blythe, Twoism (Goose Lane)
•    Amber Dawn, Where the words end and my body begins (Arsenal Pulp)
•    Raoul Fernandes, Transmitter and Receiver (Nightwood)
•    Miranda Pearson, The Fire Extinguisher (Oolichan)
•    Jeff Steudel, Foreign Park (Anvil)

Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize, for the best illustrated book written for children:

•    Song for a Summer Night: A Lullaby, by Robert Heidbreder, illustrated by Qin Leng (Groundwood)
•    The Red Bicycle: The Extraordinary Story of One Ordinary Bicycle, by Jude Isabella, illustrated by Simone Shin (Kids Can)
•    Peace Is an Offering, by Annette LeBox, illustrated by Stephanie Graegin (Dial)
•    This Is Sadie, by Sara O'Leary, illustrated by Julie Morstad (Tundra)
•    Orca Chief, by Roy Henry Vickers and Robert Budd, illustrated by Roy Henry Vickers (Harbour)

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize, for the best non-illustrated book written for children:

•    Linda Bailey, Seven Dead Pirates (Tundra)
•    Darren Groth, Are You Seeing Me? (Orca Book)
•    Susan Juby, The Truth Commission (Razorbill)
•    Susin Nielsen, We Are All Made of Molecules (Tundra)
•    Jordan Stratford, The Case of the Missing Moonstone (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award, presented to the originating publisher and author(s) of the best book in terms of public appeal, initiative, design, production, and content:

•    Caroline Adderson, John Atkin, Kerry Gold, Evelyn Lau, Eve Lazarus, John Mackie, Elise & Stephen Partridge, and Bren Simmers with an introduction by Michael Kluckner and photographs by Tracey Ayton and Caroline Adderson, Vancouver Vanishes: Narratives of Demolition and Revival (Anvil)
•    Eve Lazarus, Cold Case Vancouver: The City's Most Baffling Unsolved Murders (Arsenal Pulp)
•    Susan Musgrave, A Taste of Haida Gwaii: Food Gathering and Feasting at the Edge of the World (Whitecap)
•    Roy Henry Vickers and Robert Budd, Orca Chief (Harbour)
•    Caroline Woodward, Light Years: Memoir of a Modern Lighthouse Keeper (Harbour)