The Writers’ Guild of Alberta announced the winners of this year’s Alberta Literary Awards on May 23, during the Alberta Literary Awards Gala.

The Writers’ Guild of Alberta was formed in 1980 and is the largest provincial writers’ organization in Canada. The guild created the Alberta Literary Awards in 1982 to recognize excellence in writing by Alberta authors. This year, jurors deliberated over 150 submissions to select 24 finalists in eight categories.

The list of winners is:

Ross Annett Award for Children’s Literature

Richard Van Camp, Little You (Orca Book Publishers)

Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction

Rudy Wiebe, Come Back (Knopf Canada)

Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction

Ted Bishop, The Social Life of Ink: Culture, Wonder, and Our Relationship with the Written Word (Viking Canada)

Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama

Cheryl Foggo, John Ware Reimagined

Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry

Sarah Lang, For Tamara (House of Anansi Press)

James H. Gray Award for Short Non-Fiction

Chris Turner, “Owen’s Ark” (The Walrus)

Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story

Katie Bickell, “But For the Streetlamps and the Moon and All the Stars” (Tahoma Literary Review)

Jon Whyte Memorial Essay Award

Kim McCullough, “Tributaries”

WGA Golden Pen Award for Lifetime Achievement

Betty Jane Hegerat