Introduced in 1975, the Canadian Authors Association (CAA) Literary Awards, continue the association’s long tradition of honouring Canadian writers who achieve excellence without sacrificing popular appeal.

Throughout their existence, these CAA Awards for Adult Literature have been designed as objective rewards for excellence. Judging is carried out by panels selected in confidence. No short lists are published. The Journal (CBC) has referred to them as "The major awards given annually by authors to authors."

2010 Award Winners

CAA/MOSAID Technologies, Inc. Award for Fiction
For a full-length novel

The 2010 winner is Michael Crummey, St. John's, for Galore (Doubleday Canada). Prize: $2500 and a silver medal.

Michael Crummey is the author of three books of poetry and a book of short stories, Flesh and Blood. His first novel, River Thieves, was a finalist for the 2001 Giller Prize, and his following novel, The Wreckage, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Galore, Crummey's highly anticipated third novel, was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, and won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book in the Caribbean and Canada region. He lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.

CAA/Lela Common Award for Canadian History
To recognize excellence in the writing of Canadian history

The 2010 winner is Jonathan F. Vance, London, for A History of Canadian Culture (Oxford University Press). Prize: $2500 and a silver medal.

Jonathan Vance holds the Canada Research Chair in Conflict and Culture in the Department of History at The University of Western Ontario. His books and articles include Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War (1997), High Flight: Aviation and the Canadian Imagination (2002), and Building Canada: People and Projects that Shaped the Nation (2006). He is currently exploring a new project on regional enlistment rates in Canada during the Great War. Jonathan Vance lives in London, Ontario.

The CAA Carol Bolt Drama Award
For the best English-language play for adults by an author who is a Canadian or landed immigrant

This award is made possible through the generosity of the Playwrights Guild of Canada and Playwrights Canada Press.

The 2010 winner is Michael Nathanson, Winnipeg, for Talk (Playwrights Canada Press). Prize: $2500 and a silver medal.

Michael Nathanson began his career acting on television at age thirteen. More recently, his focus has been on writing. As a playwright, Michael's work has been seen in New York, Dallas, and at festivals across Canada. At home, Michael has written for Theatre Projects Manitoba, CBC radio, and the University of Winnipeg. In the past few years he also created and wrote two original, animated, fifty-episode internet-based series for Little Fox, Korea. As a director, his credits include Little, Right For It, To Kill the Weatherman, and The Resurrection of John Frum. Michael is the Artistic Producer of Winnipeg Jewish Theatre and a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Michael lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The CAA Poetry Award
For a volume of poetry by one poet

The 2010 winner is Tom Dawe, Conception Bay South, for Where Genesis Begins (Breakwater Books Ltd.). Prize: $1000 and a silver medal.

Born in ong Pond, Newfoundland, Tom Dawe has been a teacher, professor of English (Memorial University), visual artist, editor, writer and poet. His work includes poetry, fiction, dramatic script, folklore and children's literature. He is also one of the founding members of Breakwater Books Ltd. and TickleAce magazine. Winner of many awards and honours in arts and letters, he was recently awarded honourary membership in the Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador and induction into Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council Hall of Honour. Dawe lives in Conception Bay South, Newfoundland.

The CAA/BookLand Press Emerging Writer Award
For the Canadian (or landed immigrant) writer under 30 deemed to show most promise in the field of literary creation

This award is made possible through the generosity of BookLand Press.

The 2010 winner is Rachelle Delaney, Vancouver, for The Ship of Lost Souls (Harper Collins Canada). Prize: $500 and a silver medal.
Cover of 'The Ship of Lost Souls' Photo of Rachelle Delaney

Rachelle Delaney was born in Edmonton and has worked as a freelance writer, editor and book reviewer for Canadian magazines and newspapers, including Nature Canada and the Edmonton Journal. The Ship of Lost Souls is her first novel. She has received the Grant MacEwan Young Writers' Scholarship, the Larry Turner Award and the Bissenden Scholarship for creative writing. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Visit www.rachelledelaney.com.

The Allan Sangster Award For extraordinary service to the Association

The Allan Sangster Award honours one of the CAA's own members for extraordinary service to the Association.

The 2010 winner is Walter McConville, Victoria.

Walter McConville has been a mainstay of the Victoria & Islands Branch for many years and is known as a great entertainer at CAA conferences — the organizer/promoter of a fun songbook for use at these annual events. A past Victoria & Islands Branch newsletter editor, archivist, and vice president, Walt also tutored a CAA members' poetry group, organized/promoted branch members' collections and composed "Canauthword" crossword puzzles for the CAA National Newsline for a number of years. He has written seven books, two plays (which he also staged and directed) and over 500 poems, technical articles and short stories published in Canada, Peru, the U.K., and U.S.A. He wrote and directed musical skits for the 1993 and 1995 national conferences in Vancouver and Victoria.

2009 Winners

CAA / MOSAID Technologies, Inc. Award for Fiction
Nino Ricci, Toronto, for The Origin of Species, Phyllis Bruce Books (HarperCollins Canada)
Prize: $2500 and a silver medal

CAA / Lela Common Award for Canadian History
J.M. Bumsted, Winnipeg, for Lord Selkirk: A Life , University of Manitoba Press
Prize: $2500 and a silver medal

CAA / Carol Bolt Award for Drama
Vern Thiessen, Long Island, NY/Edmonton, Alberta, for 'Vimy'
Playwrights Canada Press
Prize: $2500 and a silver medal

CAA Award for Poetry
Elise Partridge, Vancouver, for Chameleon Hours
House of Anansi Press
Prize: $1000 and a silver medal

CAA/BookTelevision Emerging Writer Award
James Cummins, Montreal, for Ambrosia: About a Culture
Prize: $500 and a silver medal

The 2008 CAA Literary Awards winners:

CAA/MOSAID Technologies, Inc. Award for Fiction Paulette Jiles, Utopia, TX, for Stormy Weather (HarperCollins Canada. ISBN: 9780002006040) Prize: $2500 and a silver medal Oil is king of East Texas during the darkest years of the Great Depression. The Stoddard girls—responsible Mayme, whip-smart tomboy Jeanine, and bookish Bea—know no life but an itinerant one, trailing their father from town to town as he searches for work on the pipelines and derricks; that is, when he's not spending his meager earnings at gambling joints, race tracks, and dance halls. And in every small town in which the windblown family settles, mother Elizabeth does her level best to make each sparse, temporary house they inhabit a home. But the fall of 1937 ushers in a year of devastating drought and dust storms, and the family's fortunes sink further than they ever anticipated when a questionable "accident" leaves Elizabeth and her girls alone to confront the cruelest hardships of these hardest of times. With no choice left to them, they return to the abandoned family farm. It is Jeanine, proud and stubborn, who single-mindedly devotes herself to rebuilding the farm and their lives. But hard work and good intentions won't make ends meet or pay the back taxes they owe on their land. In desperation, the Stoddard women place their last hopes for salvation in a wildcat oil well that eats up what little they have left . . . and on the back of late patriarch Jack's one true legacy, a dangerous racehorse named Smoky Joe. And Jeanine, the fatherless "daddy's girl," must decide if she will gamble it all . . . on love. About the Author Paulette Jiles is a poet and memoirist. She is the author of Cousins, a memoir, and the bestselling novel Enemy Women. She lives in San Antonio, Texas Amazon.ca | Abe Books Canada | Chapters.Indigo.ca
CAA/Lela Common Award for Canadian History Robert Wright (below right), Toronto, for Three Nights in Havana (HarperCollins Canada. ISBN: 9780002006262) Prize: $2500 and a silver medal On January 26, 1976, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau embarked on his historic three-day visit to Havana, becoming the first leader of a NATO country to visit Cuba since the crippling 1960 American economic embargo. The trip was widely denounced, especially for its timing, as Castro had recently sent Cuban soldiers to fight a civil war in Angola. As the Americans watched warily, Trudeau, accompanied by his wife, Margaret, and baby Michel, was greeted in Havana by 250,000 cheering Cubans and a 30- foot poster of himself. "Long live Prime Minister Fidel Castro!" Trudeau would famously shout at the love-in. Margaret would declare Castro "the sexiest man alive." In this fascinating first-ever portrait of an unusual relationship between two enigmatic world leaders, author and historian Robert Wright brings to life three critical days when Canadian politics played on the international stage. Wright describes how, long before he was prime minister, Trudeau had attempted to canoe to Cuba, and how Castro visited Montreal as a young revolutionary, later welcoming FLQ terrorists to his tiny island. In a revealing look at their personalities and political ideologies, Wright shows how the two leaders, despite their official positions as allies of rival empires, had determinedly refused to exist merely as handmaidens to the United States. This fact, he asserts, is what brought them to power, and what drew them to each other. Wright draws on extensive insight from political commentators and historians as many interviewees talk candidly for the first time. A book that will tap into our continuing fascination with Pierre Trudeau and our interest in the future political course of Cuba, Three Nights in Havana is an intimate and insightful portrait of two controversial and often misunderstood figures and their place in history. From the Publisher Pierre Trudeau and Fidel Castro became friends despite their differences. They agreed to disagree; the same is true of Canada and Cuba. And it all began on a tiny coral key off Cuba's southern shore in 1976, with the cheer heard round the world: "Viva el primer ministro Fidel Castro!" - from Three Nights in Havan Amazon.ca | Abe Books Canada | Chapters.Indigo.ca
CAA/Carol Bolt Award for Drama Colleen Murphy, Toronto, for The December Man (l’homme de décembre) (Playwrights Canada Press. ISBN: 9780887545955) Prize: $1000 and a silver medal The December Man(L’homme de décembre) is a tragedy in which the humanity of the characters gives the play a surprising buoyancy. Heartbreaking yet never sentimental, spare yet complex, with a flawless structure, this is a brave and important play. Biography Colleen Murphy was born in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec and grew up in a small town north of Lake Superior. She studied acting at Ryerson University and at the Strasberg Institute in New York. Her radio dramas Fire Engine Red and Pumpkin Eaters, won third and second prizes, respectively, in the 1985 and 1990 CBC Literary Competitions. Beating Heart Cadaver was nominated for a GG in drama in 1999. Murphy is also a filmmaker; her film Shoemaker (1995) won several prizes, including three Genies. The December Man won the 2006 Enbridge playRites Award. Colleen Murphy lives in Toronto.
CAA Award for Poetry Asa Boxer, Montreal, for The Mechanical Bird Véhicule Press. ISBN: 9781550652277) (Prize: $1000 and a silver medal Book Description An old idea of reality animates the poems in The Mechanical Bird: things are never what they seem. Opening with a quick-talking disquisition on lying (Keep it simple, tidy, / take a noncommittal stance) and ending with masterly mediation on the workshop and its drawing-board dreams, Asa Boxers debut constantly tests the claims of authenticity over artifice. Objects, settings and everyday details are swept up in an imagination that can never quite shake the sense of the visible worldeven nature itselfas an artful mixture of fact and invention. As suggested by the eponymous metal songster, these poems are exquisitely crafted, infused with a sense of kinetic spell-making, and sing with an exuberant trust in their own guile. About the Author Montreal writer Asa Boxer won first prize in the 2004 CBC/enRoute poetry competition for his poem cycle entitled The Workshop, which is included in The Mechanical Bird. He was also shortlisted for the 2005 CBC Literary Awards. His poems, articles, and reviews have appeared in London Magazine, Arc, Books in Canada, Maisonneuve and CNQ. Amazon.ca | Abe Books Canada | Chapters.Indigo.ca
In addition, the CAA administers a special award for Canadian writers under 30. This year’s winner is: CAA/BookTelevision Emerging Writer Award Mark Haroun, Calgary, for an impressive body of recent work. Prize: $500 and a silver medal

Past Winners: Fiction | Poetry | History

Past Winners CAA Award for Fiction Winners

• 1975 Fred Stinson - Lonesome Hero
• 1976 No award
• 1977 Carol Shields - Small Ceremonies
• 1978 Jane Rule - The Young in One Another’s Arms
• 1979 Marian Engel - The Glassy Sea
• 1980 No award
• 1981 Hugh MacLennan - Voices in Time
• 1982 Joy Kogawa - Obason
• 1983 W.P. Kinsella - Shoeless Joe
• 1984 Heather Robertson - Willie: A Romance
• 1985 Timothy Findley - Not Wanted On The Voyage
• 1986 Robertson Davies - What’s Bred In The Bones
• 1987 No award
• 1988 Brian Moore - The Colour of Blood
• 1989 Joan Clark - The Victory of Geraldine Gull
• 1990 James Houston - Running West
• 1991 David Adams Richards - Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace
• 1992 Alberto Manguel - News From a Foreign Country
• 1993 Neil Bissoondath - The Innocence of Age
• 1994 Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride
• 1995 Bernice Morgan - Waiting for Time
• 1996 L.R. Wright - Mother Love
• 1997 Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees
• 1998 Rita Donovan - Landed
• 1999 Wayne Johnston - The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
• 2000 Alistair MacLeod - No Great Mischief
• 2001 Elizabeth Hay - A Student of Weather
• 2002 Will Ferguson - Generica
• 2003 Rohinton Mistry - Family Matters
• 2004 Douglas Coupland - Hey Nostradamus
• 2005 Jeffrey Moore - The Memory Artists
• 2006 Joseph Boyden - Three Day Road
• 2007 Richard Wagamese - Dream Wheels
• 2008 Paulette Jiles - Stormy Weather

Past Winners CAA Award for Poetry Winners

• 1975 Tome Wayman - For and Against the Moon: Blues, Yells and Chuckles
• 1976 Jim Green - North Book
• 1977 Sid Stephen - Beothuck Poems
• 1978 Alden Nowlan - Smoked Glass
• 1979 Andrew Suknaski - The Ghosts You Call Poor
• 1980 Michael Ondaatje - There’s A Trick With A Knife That I’m Learning To Do
• 1981 Leona Gom - Land of The Peace
• 1982 Gary Geddes - The Acid Test
• 1983 George Amabile - the presence of fire
• 1984 Don McKay - Birding Or Desire
• 1985 Leonard Cohen - Book of Mercy
• 1986 P.K. Page - The Glass Air
• 1987 Al Purdy - The Collected Poems, 1956-1986
• 1988 Patrick Lane - Selected Poems
• 1989 Bruce Rice - Daniel
• 1990 Don Bailey - Homeless Heart
• 1991 Richard Lemm - Preclude To The Bacchanal
• 1992 Anne Michaels - Miner’s Pond
• 1993 Lorna Crozier - Inventing The Hawk
• 1994 George Bowering - George Bowering Selected Poems
• 1995 Tim Lilburn - Moosehead Sandhills
• 1996 Di Brandt - Jerusalem, beloved
• 1997 E.D. Blodgett - Apostrophes: Woman at a Piano
• 1998 Anne Szumigalski - On Glassy Wings
• 1999 Janice Kulyk Keefer - Marrying the Sea
• 2000 Helen Humphreys - Anthem
  
• 2001 Carmine Starnino - Credo
  
• 2002 Tim Bowling - Darkness and Silence
  
• 2003 Margaret Avison - Concrete and Wild Carrot
  
• 2004 Chris Banks - Bonfires
• 2005 Peter Trower - Haunted Hills and Hanging Valleys
• 2006 Barry Dempster - The Burning Alphabet
• 2007 Sarah Klassen - A Curious Beatitude
• 2008 Asa Boxer - The Mechanical Bird

Past Winners CAA Lela Common Award for Canadian History Winners

• 1997 Phil Jenkins - An Acre of Time
• 1998 Dorothy Harley Eber - Images of Justice
• 1999 Rod McQueen - The Eatons
• 2000 D’Arcy Jenish - Indian Fall: The Last Great Days of the Plains Cree and Blackfoot Conspiracy
• 2001 Will Ferguson - Canadian History for Dummies
• 2002 Ken McGoogan - Fatal Passage: The Untold Story of John Rae, the Arctic Adventurer Who Discovered the Fate of Franklin
• 2003 Derek Hayes - Historical Atlas of Canada
• 2004 Ishmael Alunik, Eddie D. Kolausok and David Morrison - Across Time and Tundra: The Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic
• 2005 Charlotte Gray - The Museum Called Canada
• 2006 J.L. Granatstein - The Last Good War
• 2007 Mark Zuehlke - For Honour’s Sake: The War of 1812 and the Brokering of an Uneasy Peace
• 2008 Robert Wright - Three Nights in Havana