Maria Reva and Julian Brave Noisecat among winners of annual awards handed out to B.C. and Yukon writers
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Vancouver writers Maria Reva and Julian Brave Noisecat have been awarded top prizes at the 42nd annual B.C. and Yukon Book Prizes.
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Reva earned the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for her novel, Endling.
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Her debut novel, Endling tells the story of a snail biologist, funding her conservation work through a Ukrainian bridal agency, who teams up with two sisters in a scheme to kidnap foreign bachelors. Their plan gets upended by the outbreak of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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The novel won the 2026 Amazon Canada First Novel Award and the 2025 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.
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Noisecat earned the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize for We Survived the Night: An Indigenous Reckoning.
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Noisecat’s book combines narrative non-fiction, memoir, journalism, and Salish mythology as it traces NoiseCat’s reconciliation with his Secwépemc and St’at’imc father alongside a cross-continent look at contemporary Indigenous issues and generational survival. A member of Canim Lake Band/Tsq’escen, Noisecat co-directed the Academy Award-nominated documentary Sugarcane.
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Presented by the West Coast Book Prize Society, the prizes are awarded annually to recognize the achievements of B.C. and Yukon authors, illustrators, and publishers. Award winners are selected through a juried system, with five finalists in each prize category.
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Along with the eight awards given in the annual prize categories, two awards were given to writers for their body of work and contributions to the literary community.
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The Lieutenant-governor’s Award for Literary Excellence was given to Tom Wayman, whose prolific literary career includes more than 20 poetry collections, three collections of critical and cultural essays, three books of short fiction and a novel, as well as editing six poetry anthologies. The Winlaw, B.C. writer received B.C.’s 2022 George Woodcock Award for Lifetime Achievement in the literary arts and 2015, he was named a Vancouver Literary Landmark, with a plaque on the city’s Commercial Drive.
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The B.C. Borealis Prize: The Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution was awarded to Dan Dowhal. The prize recognizes the work of writer who has “spent significant time living in the Yukon and who have made substantial contributions to the Yukon writing and publishing community through writing, publishing, community organizing, Indigenous writing and storytelling, and other ways.” The author of four novels, Dowhal lives in Dawson City, where he also works as a newspaper editor and librarian.
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Established in 1985, the B.C. and Yukon Book Prizes were given out at a gala event hosted by the award-winning author Danny Ramadan at the University Golf Club in Vancouver.
