As a schoolboy I spent many a night helping out in a local bakery (UK child labour laws were very lax back then), and in quiet periods could be found laid out across bags of Manitoba bread flour with my rotation-reading system of books.

A Phased Revival

The Manitoba Book Awards are back. After a feasibility study deemed the programme “unsustainable” and led to its discontinuation in 2024, an independent board of writers and arts workers has re-established the awards under a new non-profit structure.

Submissions open this month across six categories: fiction, non-fiction, French-language work, poetry, best first book, and best book representing Winnipeg.

The province has recommitted funding for the French-language prize, whilst the Winnipeg Foundation, Manitoba Writers’ Guild, Winnipeg Arts Council and City of Winnipeg are sponsoring other categories.

Structural Challenges Behind the Suspension

The awards, which began in 1989 with a single prize, grew to encompass approximately ten categories annually – including specialised honours for emerging and Indigenous authors.

However, a 2024 feasibility study by consultant Kayla Calder revealed the programme was operating on less than £30,000 annually, compared to the £70,000–£120,000 typical for comparable Canadian awards programmes .

The coalition previously managing the awards – comprising Plume Winnipeg, the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, Winnipeg Public Library and Manitoba Writers’ Guild – faced compounding pressures: the COVID-19 pandemic, and a 2021 restructuring of provincial arts funding that “changed the situation dramatically”.

Community-Led Recovery

David A. Robertson, award-winning author and now board president, describes the 2026 programme as a “soft launch”.

Robertson, a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award winner and member of Norway House Cree Nation, has previously won multiple Manitoba Book Awards including the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction.

The board anticipates a full restoration of all award categories by 2027.

Notably, books published during the 2023–2024 hiatus remain ineligible for this year’s prizes, though organisers hope to recognise these works separately.

The View From the Beach

Matt Joudrey, former president of the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, noted the awards’ absence “left a big hole in the province culturally”.

No doubt.

I’m not personally familiar with Manitoba’s publishing scene, but can at last claim familiarity with the region. As a schoolboy I spent many a night helping out in a local bakery (UK child labour laws were very lax back then), and in quiet periods could be found laid out across bags of Manitoba bread flour with my rotation-reading system of books. Fifteen minutes each science, geography, history, classic literature, kids books, Marvel comics, British comics (very, very different) and biographies.

But no, I didn’t fall asleep in class. Because the next day I would be by the river fishing, accompanied by a duffle-bag full of books.

School? Hated it. That’s why I became a teacher, to show them how to do it right. 😀

This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsfeed.