WIBA 2026 Longlist Announced
The evaluating committee assessed all the entries and is pleased to announce the longlist nominees for the 2026 Whistler Independent Book Awards.
Fiction:
Adam Fenech for The Sighting
Jalyn Renae Fiske for Side Quest: Stories
Cait Gordon for Speculative Shorts: Stories that fell out of my brain
Jennifer Jacoby-Smith for A Fondness for the Reckless: A Ten Past Midnight Story
Tracy Kasaboski for The Birdman of Wylie Road
Eli Lazar for The Missing Frame
Pamela McGarry for Break My Heart, Liverpool
Francis-Adrien Morneault for The Light of Faded Stars
Pat Sullivan for In the Frame
Paul W. Walmsley for Running in the Dark
Travis Walters for Trent: The Devil’s Detective
K.Q. Watson for Clipped
Non-fiction:
Ujwal Arkalgud for Invisible Rules: How to Outsmart the Entrepreneurial Game
Ian Chisholm for Quiet Champions: A Way Forward for Mentors in Turbulent Times
Beth Granger for Born and Razed: Surviving the Cult Was Only Half the Battle
Bob Henderson and Torbjorn Ydegaard for Ways to Go: Reconsidering Travel through Himalaya Adventures — 1971 & 2023
N. Kirk Hillier for Rebel Researcher: The Unconventional Path to Discovery
Corinne Wilkinson and Trish Eaton-Parder for It’s Just a Hiccup: Reclaiming Your Identity
Dave Hutchison & Kelly Hutchison for Vancouver Island: The art of the landscape
Hélèna Katz for Dispatches from Canada’s North
Bob Joseph for 21 Things You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government: A Conversation About Dismantling the Indian Act
Rose LeMay for Ally is a Verb: A Guide to Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples
Jean McCarthy for Take Good Care: Recovery Readings Inspired by The Bubble Hour Podcast
Ryan Murray for Small Fires, Long Winters
Brant L. Thompson for Accepting 7:47: Trying to Say Goodbye While Executing the Estate
Children’s:
Paul Breau for Surviving Summer Camp
Victoria Cerdeira for Monster Science: Create Your Own Genetic Masterpiece
Beverly A. Elliott MD for The Door in the Wall
Valerie E. Fritz for Grandma’s Blue Bucket
Anna McCarthy for Giraffe in a Scarf
Mary Murphy for Away with the Fairies: Book Four: One Trail, Many Tales
Robin T. Nelson Secrets of the Sea A to Z
Diana Schaffter for Armando & the Amazing Animal Race
Paul Shore for Steve and Eve: Be a Marshmallow
Laurie Stanley-Blackwell for Hanging Out with the Haggis
Vivian Tarazona for Gabe Doesn’t Fit in the Box
J. Taylor for The After
Poetry:
April Bulmer for Good Grief
Jasper Ceylon for Echolalia Review: An Anti-Poetry Collection
Robyn Marie Butt for The Pharaoh of Good and Ill
Chantel Daniels for Apocalypse Grief Manual
Nicole Dalcourt for What Remains
Alison Douglas-Tourner for Sticks and Bones: Haiku and Senryu
Brenda Gunn for Florilegia
Kim Mannix for Confirm Humanity
Jen Selk for Landmarks and Beacons
Kelly Watt for The Weeping Degree: How Astrology Saved me from Suicide
The shortlist will be announced June 13, 2026.
Finalists will be announced July 17, 2026.
Winners will be announced during the Whistler Writers Festival, November 5 – 8, 2026.
Presented by
The Writers’ Union of Canada
The Writers’ Union of Canada is the national organization of professionally published book authors. Now over 2,800 members strong, the Union was founded in 1973 to work with governments, publishers, booksellers, and readers to improve the conditions of Canadian writers.
AWARDS PARTNER
The Whistler Writing Society was founded in 2001 and became a non-profit organization in 2005. Our group includes over 150 members living in the Sea to Sky corridor. From its inception, the group has promoted the literary arts, provided a forum for local writers to develop their craft within the community, and sponsored events such as the Whistler Writers Festival, the Whistler Writer in Residence Program, and the Author in Schools Program.