Each year, QWF shines a spotlight on the best English-language literary work to emerge from Quebec. Established in 1988 under the name “The QSPELL Awards,” the name changed to “The QWF Awards” in 1998, when QSPELL and its sister organization FEWQ (Federation of English-language Writers of Quebec) joined forces to create The Quebec Writers’ Federation. The Awards have gone from an initial offering of three prizes, for Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry, to seven, including First Book (added in 1996), Translation (1998), Children’s and Young Adult Literature (2008), and Playwriting (2018). For each genre, a three-person jury is formed each year from across Canada, and the prize is $3,000.
2025
Winner
If Haitian Blood Were Oil
Math
The Itch
The Book of Records
(Knopf Canada)
The Hand of the Hand
(Ugly Duckling Presse)
An Orange, A Syllable
(ECW Press)
The Mind Mappers: Friendship, Betrayal and the Obsessive Quest to Chart the Brain
(Random House Canada)
The New Girl
(Graphix / Scholastic Inc.)
2024
Winner
“committing a dream / pawâkan Palestine”
“Congratulations”
“Memory Justice”
Équateur magnétique
(Triptyque)
National Animal
(Véhicule Press/Signal Editions)
Salesman in China
(Stratford Festival)
Little Crosses
(House of Anansi Press)
Hopscotch
(Groundwood Books Ltd.)
Furniture Music
(Wave Books)
2023
Winner
“Laughter in the Rain”
“All the Screams”
“Survival Mechanisms”
Fayne
(Knopf Canada)
To See Out the Night
(QC Fiction/Baraka Books)
Wet Dream
(Brick Books)
A Boy Is Not a Ghost
(Groundwood Books)
Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation
(HarperCollins Publishers)
2022
Winner
“Odiama”
Prophetess
(Véhicule Press)
Mina
(Simon & Schuster Canada))
Dream of No One But Myself
(Brick Books)
Plus aucun enfant autochtone arraché
(Lux Éditeur)
“Not in the Bike Commercial”
Looking for Alicia: The Unfinished Life of an Argentinian Rebel
(House of Anansi Press)
The Millennial Malcontent
(Playwrights Canada Press)
the half-drowned
(Metatron Press)
“Free Your Mind”
2021
Winner
Fighting for a Hand to Hold: Confronting Medical Colonialism Against Indigenous Children in Canada
(McGill-Queen’s University Press)
I Am the Big Heart
(Brick Books)
Love Like Water, Love Like Fire
(Bellevue Literary Press)
I Am a Damn Savage; What Have You Done to My Country?
(Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
Room for One More
(Kar-Ben Publishing)
Fighting for a Hand to Hold: Confronting Medical Colonialism Against Indigenous Children in Canada
(McGill-Queen’s University Press)
2020
Winner
Dominoes at the Crossroads
(Véhicule Press/Esplanade Book)
Albumen
(Arts Court Theatre)
A Common Name for Everything
(Green Writers Press)
Éclipse électrique
(Éditions du Boréal)
The Three Brothers
(Groundwood Books)
The Danger Model
(McGill-Queen's University Press)
2019
Winner
The Teardown
(Véhicule Press)
nîtisânak
(Metonymy Press)
The Ghost Garden
(Random House Canada)
Obits.
(Coach House Books)
The Faerie Devouring
(Book*hug)
Yipee’s Gold Mountain
(Red Deer Press)
2018
Winner
Paradise Lost
(Playwrights Canada Press)
Hôtel Lonely Hearts
(Alto)
Mr. Crum’s Potato Predicament
(Kids Can Press)
My Ariel
(Coach House Books)
Demi-Gods
(Hamish Hamilton Canada)
In Praise of Blood
(Random House Canada)
Zolitude
(Biblioasis)
2017
Winner
Subject to Change
(Orca Book Publisher)
Rag Cosmology
(BookThug)
The Lonely Hearts Hotel
(HarperCollins Publishers Ltd)
The Pauper’s Freedom: Crime and Poverty in Nineteenth-Century Quebec
(McGill-Queen's University Press)
Uncertain Weights and Measures
(Goose Lane Editions)
2016
Winner
Small Fires
(McGill-Queen's University Press)
The Measure of Darkness
(Bellevue Literary Press)
A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age
(Allen Lane Canada, Penguin Random House Canada)
Small Fires
(McGill-Queen's University Press)
Solomon Gursky
(Éditions du Boréal)
Oscar Lives Next Door
(Owlkids Books)