Ottawa Book Awards

WINNER

Masses on Radar

by David O’Meara
Coach House Books

Words like radio waves, bouncing off the spectres of mortality, middle age, and the mundane. Embracing uncertainty and incorporating seasonal forecasts, humour, trivia, satire, politics, the environment, loss, and the mundane, these poems are a detection system signaling a paradox of meanings.

David O'Meara is the author of four previous collections of poetry, most recently Masses on Radar (Coach House Books 2021). David was the Poet-in-Residence for Arc Poetry Magazine and served as a faculty member at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

by Emily Austin
Simon & Schuster Canada

This hilarious and profound debut for fans of Mostly Dead Things and Goodbye, Vitamin, follows a morbidly anxious young woman who stumbles into a job as a receptionist at a Catholic church and becomes obsessed with her predecessor’s mysterious death.

Emily R. Austin was born in Ontario, Canada, and received a writing grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts in 2020. She studied English literature and library science at Western University. She currently lives in Ottawa. Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is her first novel.

Repointing the Bricks

by Jacqueline Bourque
Mansfield Press

Repointing the Bricks inhabits and is inhabited. Jacqueline Bourque examines the lasting impression that birthplace can have on those who find refuge elsewhere. Confident that home is often experienced as addition and subtraction of the self, she sheds new homes regularly with the knowledge that instability can lead to a reconsideration of how a person is defined.

Jacqueline Bourque’s poetry is featured in a number of anthologies and journals, including The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Queen’s Quarterly, and The Dalhousie Review. In 2019, she released a chapbook titled The Dune as Bookmark, published by Anstruther Press. Repointing the Bricks, published by Mansfield Press, is her debut collection.

The Artist & The Assassin

by Mark Frutkin
The Porcupine’s Quill

A novel based on the wild and creative life and mysterious death of the famous 17th century Italian painter, Caravaggio. The book has two main characters: Caravaggio himself (the Artist) and his ultimate Assassin.

Mark Frutkin has published 10 novels, 4 works of non-fiction and 4 collections of poetry. His novel, Fabrizio's Return, won the Trillium Award (2007), the national Sunburst Award, and was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. He has been a finalist 3 times for the Ottawa Book Award.

Letters from Johnny

by Wayne Ng
Guernica Editions Inc

Set in Toronto 1970, Letters from Johnny takes us from the FLQ crisis and a shocking neighbourhood crime, to the simple heartbreak of being a Maple Leafs fan. Wayne Ng brings us the world of Johnny Wong, as the 11-year-old pours out his fears, hopes, and dreams to his new pen-pal, Leafs legend Dave Keon.

Wayne Ng was born in downtown Toronto to Chinese immigrants and works as a school social worker in Ottawa. His debut novel Finding The Way was released in 2018. He is an award-winning short story and travel writer, blogging and photographing along the way at WayneNgWrites.com

WINNER

Le malaimant

by Michèle Vinet
Les Éditions L’Interligne

Aurel is tormented by the past, love, and the blank page. Fabulous characters come to his aid with their potions and talismans. A perilous journey begins at the heart of a man’s turmoil, which leads him down treacherous paths.

A University of Ottawa graduate in French Literature and Education, and a specialist in French as a second language, Michèle Vinet has devoted much of her career to education.

Marjorie à Montréal

by Véronique-Marie Kaye
Éditions Prise de parole

When Marjorie Chalifoux arrives in Montréal—pregnant at 19 with the child of a deceased lover—she only has one plan in mind: to make a living with her poor sewing skills. Unwilling to be pushed around, she quickly learns that through her blunt and outspoken nature, she has the power to change the lives of everyone she meets.

Véronique-Marie Kaye is a novelist and playwright. She won the Trillium Book Award for her novel Marjorie Chalifoux (2015) and was a finalist for the same award for her play Afghanistan (2013).

Dans le ventre du Congo

by Blaise Ndala
Mémoire d’encrier

Dans le ventre du Congo tells the story of Princess Tshala Nyota Moelo, who breaks free from the control of one of the most prestigious monarchies of pre-colonial Congo. Seduced by a young Belgian settler, she ends up in the last human zoo in Europe.

Blaise Ndala was born in Congo (DRC), a country he left in 2003 to study law in Belgium. He emigrated to Canada in 2007. His novels include: J’irai danser sur la tombe de Senghor, Sans capote ni kalachnikov and Dans le ventre du Congo.

Dans la solitude du Terminal 3

by Éric Mathieu
La mèche

February 1984. Nathan Adler witnesses a car accident and helps the driver. Irresistibly attracted to the driver, Nathan meets a toxic group that revolves around writer Antoine Dulys. Between the many blackouts, where Nathan visits a parallel world, and the nauseating awakenings, reality becomes distorted until it takes an irreversible dramatic turn.

Éric Mathieu is a writer and linguistics professor at the University of Ottawa. He has been living in Ottawa since 2004. Les suicidés d’Eau-Claire, his first novel, was a finalist for the prestigious Trillium Book Award in 2017 and won the Prix littéraire émergence from the Association des auteures et des auteurs de l’Ontario français.

WINNER

The Two Michaels: Innocent Canadian Captives and High Stakes Espionage in the US-China Cyber War

by Fen Osler Hampson and Mike Blanchfield
Sutherland House

Landing in Vancouver on December 2018, Chinese executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested by Canadian authorities with an American extradition warrant. Meng was accused of fraud and bypassing sanctions against Iran. In an act of retaliation, China arrested two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, charging them with spying. Imprisoned and interrogated, the Two Michaels became hostages in a tense showdown.

Fen Osler Hampson is Chancellor’s Professor at Carleton University and President of the World Refugee & Migration Council.

Mike Blanchfield is the international affairs writer for The Canadian Press, based in Ottawa.

Anything But a Still Life: The Art and Lives of Molly Lamb and Bruno Bobak

by Nathan M. Greenfield
Goose Lane Editions

The art and lives of Molly Lamb and Bruno Bobak — from their work as war artists during World War II to their marriage and post-war life in Vancouver and then Fredericton. Greenfield combines analysis of the Bobaks’ art, interviews with contemporaries, and research into Molly’s diaries and letters to paint a comprehensive portrait of the Bobaks’ life and work.

Nathan M. Greenfield is the author of eight books. A regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, Greenfield’s articles have also appeared in the Walrus, Canada’s History, the Globe and Mail, and Maclean’s.

Women at the Helm: How Jean Sutherland Boggs, Hsio-yen Shih, and Shirley L. Thomson Changed the National Gallery of Canada

by Diana Nemiroff
McGill-Queen’s University Press

Women at the Helm explores a transformative thirty-year period in the history of an iconic cultural institution through the careers of three directors, their accomplishments, and the challenges they faced. A unique history of the National Gallery of Canada considers the circumstances of these directors’ remarkable tenures and the obstacles still faced by women in leadership roles today.

Diana Nemiroff is an art historian and a former curator of contemporary and modern art at the National Gallery of Canada.

The Perfect Medicine

by Brodie Ramin
Dundurn Press

The Perfect Medicine takes the reader on a personal journey of discovery and explores the science of exercise and health. It can help readers change their lives by providing facts about running and sharing inspiring examples of others who have used running to transform their lives.

Brodie Ramin is a primary care and addictions physician who uses exercise as a tool to improve the physical and mental health of his patients. His previous book, The Age of Fentanyl, was shortlisted for the Donner Prize. Dr. Ramin is an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa

Sir Mackenzie Bowell: A Canadian Prime Minister Forgotten by History

by Barry K. Wilson
Loose Cannon Press

Sir Mackenzie Bowell was Canada’s fifth prime minister (1894-1896). He is a little known prime minister, despite his history as a fifty year parliamentarian from Belleville, Ontario, and a key minister in several cabinets under Sir John A. Macdonald. This book traces his life from arriving as a child immigrant from England to a newspaper owner, parliamentarian and prime minister. This book fills in some important blanks in Canadian history.

Barry Wilson worked for 44 years as a journalist in three provinces, including 34 years in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. He has written five books, all nonfiction and published by different Canadian publishing companies. He was inducted into the Agricultural Hall of Fame for his agricultural reporting.