Monday, June 22, 2015

Sophie, in Shadow makes the finalist list for the 2015 Sunburst Awards

Excellent news this morning: Sophie, in Shadow is on the shortlist for this year's Sunburst Awards, in the YA category.

2015 Sunburst Awards finalists announced

The Sunburst Award Society has announced the shortlists for the 2015 Sunburst Awards for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, which honours speculative fiction in three categories: adult, young adult and short story.

The five short-listed works in the adult category are:

The Troop by Nick Cutter (Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster)
The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd)
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd)
My Real Children by Jo Walton (Tor Books)
Will Starling by Ian Weir (Goose Lane Editions)




Honourable Mentions:

The First Principles of Dreaming by Beth Goobie (Second Story Press)
Gifts for the One Who Comes After by Helen Marshall (ChiZine Publications)
Echopraxia by Peter Watts (Tor Books)

The five short-listed works in the young adult category are:

The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier (Amulet Books)
Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci (Roaring Brook Press)
A Breath of Frost by Alyxandra Harvey (Bloomsbury Press)
Sophie, In Shadow by Eileen Kernaghan (Thistledown Press)
The Door in the Mountain by Caitlin Sweet (ChiTeen)



Honourable Mentions:

Sea of Shadows by Kelley Armstrong (Doubleday Canada)
Child of a Hidden Sea by A.M. Dellamonica (Tor Books)
The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel (Harper Trophy Canada)


The jurors for the 2015 award are S.M. Beiko, Gerard Collins, Paula Johanson, Corey Redekop and Sherryl Vint.

The winner in each category will receive a cash prize of $1,000 as well as a distinctive Sunburst medallion. 

Winners will be announced in the fall of 2015.



Monday, June 1, 2015


I opened my e-mail this morning to read the announcement of the Long List  for the 2015 Sunburst Awards (Canadian Literature of the Fantastic), and was thrilled to find Sophie, in Shadow on the YA list. 

From the official website: The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award which recognizes exceptional writing in three categories: adult, young adult and short story. The awards are presented each fall to the best Canadian speculative fiction novel, book-length collection, or short story published any time during the previous calendar year.

Named after the first novel by Phyllis Gotlieb (1926–2009), one of the first celebrated writers of contemporary Canadian science fiction, the award is a cash prize of $1,000 for each of the Adult and Young Adult categories. All awards are presented with the distinctive Sunburst medallion. The awards are presented in the fall of each year.
 I'll be reading from Sophie (along with my friend and fellow historical writer Ruth Kozak) at the Vancouver Public Library Main Branch on June 10, 7 p.m.