Book critics’ prize long list includes Toews, Atwood

A handful of Canadian authors, including beloved Manitoba-born author Miriam Toews, have landed on the long lists for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award.

Every year awards are given in six categories — fiction, non-fiction, biography, autobiography, poetry and criticism — for books chosen by National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) committees for each genre. As you’d guess by its name, the U.S.-based NBCC is made up of reviewers.

The autobiography category sees two CanLit heavyweights in contention — Toews for A Truce That Is Not Peace and Margaret Atwood for Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts.

In the fiction category, Montreal’s Madeleine Thien is in the running for her novel The Book of Records, her first book-length work of fiction in nine years (following the Giller Prize and Governor General’s Literary Award-winning Do Not Say We Have Nothing).

In the criticism category, Omar El Akkad is on the long list for his much-lauded One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, winner of the National Book Award, as is Irish-Canadian author and filmmaker Joanna Pocock for Greyhound.

Finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards will be announced on Jan. 20, 2026, with the awards ceremony taking place March 26 in New York City. For the complete list of longlisted books and authors, see bookcritics.org/awards/.

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Brandon-born, Vancouver-based bookseller Madeline Neill, who opened her first bookstore over 60 years ago, has died at age 96, according to Quill & Quire.

Neill took inspiration and mentoring from Mary Scorer and her long-defunct Winnipeg shop Mary Scorer Books, opening the first Black Bond Books in Brandon in 1963. The name for Neill’s shop came from her two grandmothers’ last names.

Neill moved to B.C. in 1972 and opened a Black Bond Books location in White Rock before expanding to Langley and the Lower Mainland. She retired in 1994, handing the reins over to daughter Cathy Jesson, who brought on her own daughter Caitlin Jesson. The duo continue to run a half-dozen stores in B.C.

Neill died Nov. 1 in her home of White Rock, B.C.

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Swampy Cree writer and publisher David A. Robertson was named the 2025 community builder of the year by the Globe and Mail.

Robertson published a trio of books in 2025 — The World’s End (the sixth and final book of the middle-grade Misewa Saga), 52 Ways to Reconcile: How to Walk with Indigenous Peoples on the Path to Healing and the memoir All the Little Monsters: How I Learned to Live With Anxiety — and also contributed to the anthology Elbows Up!: Canadian Voices of Resilience and Resistance.

Josh O’Kane of the Globe and Mail wrote that Robertson did all that, as well as getting publishing imprint Swift Water Books off the ground and taking on extensive speaking engagements “through hard work, backed by deep faith in storytelling, and in people working together for common good and understanding.”

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The Winnipeg Poetry Slam is throwing a party, and everyone’s invited.

The Open Mic Poetry Bash takes place Tuesday at the Handsome Daughter (61 Sherbrook St.); doors open at 6 p.m., at which time poets can sign up to read, with said readings getting underway at 7 p.m.

The sliding-scale admission is $5-10, and those who are coming are encouraged to don formal wear for the event.

For more about Winnipeg Poetry Slam, check out winnipegpoetryslam.ca.

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For those contemplating a new career path in 2026, take note: Plume Winnipeg has extended its search for a new executive director to Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.

The organization’s top post was long held by Charlene Diehl, who is stepping away at the end of 2025 after 23 years at the helm (including running Thin Air, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival).

The hybrid position averages 20-30 hoursper week, with a start date of Feb. 1. For more info and to apply, see wfp.to/plumeed.

winnipegfreepress.com/bensigurdson