This year’s Atlantic Book Awards put the spotlight on Prince Edward Island, with Acorn Press taking two prizes for Ni’n na L’nu: The Mi’kmaq of Prince Edward Island by Jesse Francis and A.J.B. Johnston, and a lifetime achievement award granted to Ragweed Press founder Harry Baglole. The ceremony, hosted for the first time in Charlottetown by CBC Radio’s Matt Rainnie, recognized 10 books, publishers, authors, and illustrators from the Atlantic region.

Baglole was honoured with the inaugural Pioneer Award “for his path-breaking contribution to PEI writing and publishing, including his instrumental role in establishing one of the Island’s first publishing houses,” a press release says. Baglole also helped develop the Institute of Island Studies and its publishing arm, Island Studies Press.

The winners are:

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature
Nix Minus One, Jill MacLean (Pajama Press)

Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association’s Best Atlantic-Published Book Award
Acorn Press for Ni’n na L’nu: The Mi’kmaq of Prince Edward Island by Jesse Francis and A.J.B. Johnston

Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing
Black Loyalists:  Southern Settlers of Nova Scotia’s First Free Black Communities, Ruth Holmes Whitehead (Nimbus Publishing)

Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson
Scapegoat: The Extraordinary Legal Proceedings Following the 1917 Halifax Explosion, Joel Zemel (New World Publishing)

Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
The August Gales: The Tragic Loss of Fishing Schooners in the North Atlantic, 1926 and 1927, Gerald Hallowell (Nimbus)

Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction)
Fallsy Downsies, Stephanie Domet (Invisible Publishing)

Lillian Shepherd Award for Excellence in Illustration
Susan Tooke for Lasso the Wind: Aurélia’s Verses and Other Poems, written by George Elliott Clarke (Nimbus)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award
Turn Us Again, Charlotte R. Mendel (Roseway Publishing)

PEI Book Award for Fiction
Riptides: New Island Fiction, edited by Richard Lemm (Acorn)

PEI Book Award for Non-Fiction
Ni’n na L’nu: The Mi’kmaq of Prince Edward Island, Jesse Francis and A.J.B. Johnston (Acorn)

PEI Book Award for Poetry
The TWIG Collective – A Gathering of Twigs edited by P. Susan Buchanan and Margot Maddison-MacFadyen (TWiG Publications)