New Brunswick novelist Riel Nason, whose The Town That Drowned won the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, was one of nine East Coast authors to take home prizes at the Atlantic Book Awards in St. John’s on Thursday night.

The awards recognize work produced in Atlantic Canada or by Atlantic Canadian authors. The winners are:

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award ($1,500)
Riel Nason, The Town That Drowned (Goose Lane Editions)

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature ($2,000)
Susan White, The Year Mrs. Montague Cried (Acorn Press)

APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award ($1,000 for author; $4,000 for publisher)
Chris Benjamin, Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada (Nimbus Publishing)

Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson ($1,500)
Harry Thurston, The Atlantic Coast: A Natural History (Greystone Books)

Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing ($2,000)
Carol Campbell and James F. Smith, Necessaries and Sufficiencies: Planter Society in Londonderry, Onslow and Truro Townships, 1761“1780 (Cape Breton University Press)

Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction ($1,500)
Mary Rose Donnelly, Great Village (Cormorant Books)

Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration ($500)
Sydney Smith, illus., There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen by Sheree Fitch (Nimbus)

Ches Crosbie Barristers Fiction Award ($1,500 for winner; $500 for each runner-up)
Gerard Collins, Moonlight Sketches (Creative Book Publishing)

The Bruneau Family Children’s/Young Adult Literature Award ($1,500 for winner; $500 for each runner-up)
Andy Jones and Darka Erdelji, illus., Jack and the Manger (Running the Goat Books & Broadsides)

Not only was this the first year the awards ceremony took place outside of Halifax (it returns to the Nova Scotia city for 2013), it was also the first time the event included the presentation of the Ches Crosbie Barristers Fiction Award and The Bruneau Family Children’s/Young Adult Literature Award.