2025
The $5,000 City of Victoria Book Prize, now in its 22nd year, is awarded to a writer from the
Capital Regional District for the best book published in the categories of fiction and non-fiction.
Marilyn Bowering | McGill-Queen’s University Press
From the jury: Marilyn Bowering’s rhapsodic language weaves the sounds and imagery of the Hebrides in this rich work of memoir, history, and poetry, drawing out the life of 17th century poet Mary MacLeod.
Bowering invites her readers to take part in her journey, uncovering the past through conversations with poets, musicians, and historians, and examining the value and fallibility of oral histories and the art of storytelling. The author’s curiosity and enthusiasm are contagious and help to articulate how important these sources of local knowledge are for translating both language and history with the care they deserve.
Sarah Cox | Goose Lane
From the jury: Signs of Life: Field Notes from the Frontlines of Extinction, by Sarah Cox, is an urgent and compelling exploration of the looming dangers of species extinction. Cox vividly synthesizes aspects of the crisis, as well as its possible solutions, through multiples lenses: the personal, the historical, the cultural and the scientific. The narrative she crafts features evidential research and gritty field work, outlining the issues, but also showing us the personalities who are trying to pull us back from the brink of species loss in our time and region.
Barbara Black | Caitlin Press
From the jury:
Little Fortified Stories, Barbara Black’s collection of flash fictions, is a beautiful combination of powerful pocket-sized narratives and poetic sensibility. Lyrical and playful, each experience is distilled into a unique microcosmos, rich and colourful, deeply emotional, yet strong as a fortress, protective of the most fragile sensibilities. The author’s originality, subtle humour and gentle poetry are a delight for the reader.
Ali Blythe: Stedfast
Arleen Paré : Absence of Wings
Shō Yamagushiku : Shima
Tim Lilburn : Numinous Seditions: Interiority and Climate Change
Kathryn Mockler: Anecdotes – WINNER
Maleea Acker for Hesitating Once to Feel Glory
Robert Amos for E.J. Hughes: Canadian War Artist
Mary Bomford for Red Dust and Cicada Songs
Pauline Holdstock for Confessions with Keith – WINNER
Arleen Paré: First
Esi Edugyan : Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling – WINNER
Barry Gough : Possessing Meares Island: A Historian’s Journey into the Past of Clayoquot Sound
Gregor Craigie: On Borrowed Time: North America’s Next Big Quake
The Science and Spirit of Seaweed: Discovering Food, Medicine and Purpose in the Kelp Forests of the Pacific Northwest
Teoni Spathelfer : White Raven
Grant Buday for Orphans of Empire
Lorna Crozier for Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats)
Briony Penn with Cecil Paul for Following the Good River: The Life and Times of Wa’xai – WINNER
Kyeren Regehr for Cult Life
Madeline Sonik for Fontainebleau
Lorna Crozier : The House the Spirit Builds – WINNER
Carla Funk: Every Little Scrap and Wonder: A Small-Town Childhood
Christin Geall: Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style
Carey Newman & Kirstie Hudson Picking Up the Pieces: Residential School Memories and the Making of the Witness Blanket
Steven Price: Lampedusa
Robert Amos: EJ Hughes Paints Vancouver Isaland
Lorna Crozier : God of Shadows
Esi Edugyan: Washington Black
Darrel McLeod: Mamaskatch
Kathy Page: Dear Evelyn – WINNER
Lorna Crozier: What the Sould Doesn’t Want
Patrick Friesen: Songen
Rhonda Ganz: Frequent small loads of laundry
Bill Gaston: A Mariner’s guide to Self Sabotage – WINNER
Marie Tippett: Sculpture in Canada
M.A.C Farrant: The Days
Kevin Patterson: News from the Red Desert
Steven Price: By Gaslight
Yasuko Thanh: Mysterious Fragance of the Yellow Mountains – WINNER
Patricia Young: Short Takes on the Apocalypse
Frances Backhouse: Once they were hats
Tricia Dower: Becoming Lin
Pauline Holdstock: The Hunter and the wild girl – WINNER
Laura Trunkey: Double Dutch
Nancy Turner: Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge
Grant Buday: The Delusionist
Arlenn Pare: Lake of Two Mountains
Karen Enns: Ordinary Hours
Julie Paul: The pull of the moon
Dede Crane: Every Happy Family
Michael Layland: The land of Heart’s Delight
Audrey Thomas: Local Customs
Catherine Greenwood: Lost Letters
M.A.C. Farrant: The World Afloat – WINNER
Stephen Reid: A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden – WINNER
C.P. Boyko: Psychology and Other Stories
Christina Johnson-Dean: The life and art of Ina D.D. Uhtoff
Lorna Crozier: The Book of Marvels, Compendium of Everyday Things
Bill Gaston: The World
William Deverell : I”ll see you in my dreams
Mark Zuehlke: Breakout from Juno
Fisher et al: All the Dirt: Reflections on Organic Farming
Madeline Sonik: Afflictions and Departures – WINNER
Esi Edugyan: Half Blood Blues
Stephen Hume: A walk with the rainy sisters
John Schreiber: Old Lives
Jack Hodgins: The Master of Happy Endings – WINNER
Sylvia Olsen: Working with Wool
Carla Funk: Apologetic
Frances Backhouse: Children of the Klondike – WINNER
M.A.C. Farrant: The Secret lives of Litterbugs
Eve Joseph: THe secret signature of things
Jay Ruzesky: Wolsenburg Clock
Deborah Willis: Vanishing and other stories
Dede Crane: The cult of quick repair
Patrick Lane: Red Dog Red Dog – WINNER
David Leach: Fatal Tide: When the race of a lifetime goes wrong
Ilana Stanger Ross: Sima’s Undergarments for Women
Joanne Dionne: Little Emporers
Aileen Pare: Paper Trail – Winner
Mark Zuehlke: Terrible Victory
Bill Gaston: Gargoyles – WINNER
PK Page: Hand Luggage
Patricia Young: Airstream
Terence Young: Moving Day
Marke Zuehlke: For Honour’s Sake
Daryl Ashby: John Muir West Coast Pioneer
Dede Crane: Sympathy
Mitchell Parry: Tacoma Narrows
Pamela Porter: Crazy Man
Mark Zuehlke: Holding Juno -WINNER
Terence Young: After Goodlakes – WINNER
Kevin Patterson: Country of Cold – WINNER
The Victoria Book Prize Society acknowledges that we live and work on the traditional territories of many First Nations, including but not limited to BOḰEĆEN (Pauquachin), MÁLEXEȽ (Malahat), P’a:chi:da?aht (Pacheedaht), Pune’laxutth’ (Penelekut), Sc’ianew (Cheanuh), Songhees, SȾÁUTW̱ (Tsawout), T’Sou-ke, W̱JOȽEȽP (Tsartlip), W̱SIKEM (Tseycum), and xʷsepsəm (Esquimalt).
As an organization dedicated to celebrating story, we honour the first storytellers of these lands and commit to an ongoing process of listening and learning.
©2026 Victoria Book Prizes. All rights reserved
