# Edna Staebler Award

The Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction is an annual literary award recognizing the previous year's best creative nonfiction book with a "Canadian locale and/or significance" that is a Canadian writer's "first or second published book of any type or genre". It was established by an endowment from Edna Staebler, a literary journalist best known for cookbooks, and was inaugurated in 1991 for publication year 1990. The award is administered by Wilfrid Laurier University's Faculty of Arts. Only submitted books are considered.
For purposes of the award, "Creative non-fiction is literary not journalistic. The writer does not merely give information but intimately shares an experience with the reader by telling a factual story using the devices of fiction ... Rather than emphasizing objectivity, the book should have feeling, and should be a compelling, engaging read."

## Recipients

The panel may "grant or withhold the award in any year." In fact the award has been granted every year and there were two winners in 1993 (published 1992).
In the 2020s, the awards were postponed for several years due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. The nominees for 2020 were announced in July 2022, with the winner to be announced in August, and the nominees for 2021 are expected later in the year. Following postponement during the pandemic, a shortlist of nominees was announced on May 18, 2023.

### 1990s

Edna Staebler Award recipients (1991-1999) :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1991 | Susan Mayse | Ginger: The Life and Death of Albert Goodwin | Winner |
| 1992 | Marie Wadden | Nitassinan: The Innu Struggle to Reclaim Their Homeland | Winner |
| 1992 | Phil Jenkins | Fields of Vision: A Journey to Canada's Family Farms | Shortlist |
| 1992 | Anne Kershaw and Mary Lasovich | Rock-a-bye Baby: A Death Behind Bars | Shortlist |
| 1992 | Sherrill MacLaren | Invisible Power: The Women Who Run Canada | Shortlist |
| 1992 | Marlene Webber | Street Kids: The Tragedy of Canada's Runaways | Shortlist |
| 1993 | Liza Potvin | White Lies (for my mother) | Winner |
| 1993 | Elizabeth Hay | The Only Snow in Havana | Winner |
| 1994 | Linda Johns | Sharing a Robin's Life | Winner |
| 1995 | Denise Chong | The Concubine's Children | Winner |
| 1995 | Rosalind MacPhee | Picasso's Woman: A Breast Cancer Story | Shortlist |
| 1995 | Jack Kuper | After the Smoke Cleared | Shortlist |
| 1995 | Rita Moir | Survival Gear | Shortlist |
| 1996 | George G. Blackburn | The Guns of Normandy | Winner |
| 1996 | Patricia Pitcher | Artists, Craftsmen and Technocrats: The Dreams, Realities and Illusions of Leadership | Shortlist |
| 1996 | Tom Connors | Stompin' Tom: Before the Fame | Shortlist |
| 1996 | Frances Backhouse | Women of the Klondike | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Anne Mullens | Timely Death | Winner |
| 1997 | William Aide | Starting from Porcupine | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Phil Jenkins | An Acre of Time: The Enduring Value of Place | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Douglas Chambers | Stony Ground: The Making of a Canadian Garden | Shortlist |
| 1998 | Charlotte Gray | Mrs. King | Winner |
| 1998 | Elisabeth Raab | And Peace Never Came | Shortlist |
| 1998 | Lois Sweet | God in the Classroom: The Controversial Issue of Religion in Canada's Schools | Shortlist |
| 1998 | A. C. Lewis | Nahanni Remembered | Shortlist |
| 1999 | Michael Poole | Romancing Mary Jane | Winner |
| 1999 | Will Ferguson | I Was a Teenage Katima-Victim: A Canadian Odyssey | Shortlist |
| 1999 | James Mahar and Rowena Mahar | Too Many to Mourn: One Family's Tragedy in the Halifax Explosion | Shortlist |
| 1999 | Jori Smith | Charlevoix County: 1930 | Shortlist |

### 2000s

Edna Staebler Award recipients (2000-2009) :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2000 | Wayson Choy | Paper Shadows | Winner |
| 2000 | Beth Powning | Shadow Child: An Apprenticeship in Love and Loss | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Ellen Stafford | Always and After | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Kevin Patterson | The Water in Between: A Journey at Sea | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Andrew Steinmetz | Wardlife: The Apprenticeship of a Young Writer as a Hospital Clerk | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Taras Grescoe | Sacré Blues | Winner |
| 2001 | Howard Hewer | In for a Penny, In for a Pound: The Adventures and Misadventures of a Wireless Operator in Bomber Command | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Mary Pratt | Mary Pratt: A Personal Calligraphy | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Trevor Herriot | River in a Dry Land: A Prairie Passage | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Tom Allen | Rolling Home: A Cross Canada Railroad Memoir | Winner |
| 2002 | Nicholas Pashley | Notes on a Beermat: Drinking and Why It's Necessary | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Gabriel Bauer | Waltzing the Tango: Confessions of an Out-of-Step Boomer | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Ron Corbett | Last Guide: A Story of Fish and Love The | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Cornelia Johanna Baines | Under Syndenham Skies: A Celebration of Country Life | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Alison Watt | The Last Island | Winner |
| 2003 | Peter McSherry | Mean Streets: Confessions of a Night-Time Taxi Driver | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Adam Killick | Racing the White Silence: On The Trail of the Yukon Quest | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Dawn Rae Downton | Seldom: A Memoir | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Andrea Curtis | Into the Blue | Winner |
| 2004 | Ellen Bielawski | Rogue Diamonds: The Rush for Northern Riches on Dene Land | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Kevin Bazzana | Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Ralph Osborne | From Somewhere Else | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Alex M. Hall | Discovering Eden: A Lifetime of Paddling Arctic Rivers | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Anne Coleman | I'll Tell You a Secret | Winner |
| 2005 | Tilda Shalof | A Nurse's Story: Life, Death and In-Between in an Intensive Care Unit | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Geoff Heinricks | A Fool and Forty Acres: Conjuring a Vineyard Three Thousand Miles from Burgundy | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Elizabeth Hudson | Snow Bodies: One Woman’s Life on the Streets | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Michael Mitchell | The Molly Fire | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Francis Chalifour | After | Winner |
| 2006 | Lisa Rochon | Up North | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Rosalind B. Penfold | Dragonslippers: This is What an Abusive Relationship Can Look Like | Shortlist |
| 2006 | John Vaillant | The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Kim Bolan | Loss of Faith: How the Air-India Bombers Got Away with Murder | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Linden MacIntyre | Causeway: A Passage from Innocence | Winner |
| 2007 | Marcello Di Cintio | Poets & Pahlevans: A Journey into the Heart of Iran | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Rachel Lebowitz | Hannus | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Patrick Friesen | Interim Essays & Mediations | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Bruce Serafin | Stardust | Winner |
| 2008 | Nathan M. Greenfield | Baptism of Fire: The Second Battle of Ypres and the Forging of Canada, April 1915 | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Chantal Hébert | French Kiss: Stephen Harper’s Blind Date with Quebec | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Jane Hall | The Red Wall: A Woman in the RCMP | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Russell Wangersky | Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself | Winner |
| 2009 | Martin Mitchinson | The Darien Gap: Travels in the Rainforest of Panama | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Cathy Ostlere | Lost: A Memoir | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Andrew Westoll | The Riverbones: Stumbling After Eden in the Jungles of Suriname | Shortlist |

### 2010s

Edna Staebler Award recipients (2010-2019) :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2010 | John Leigh Walters | A Very Capable Life | Winner |
| 2010 | Allan Casey | Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Else Poulsen | Smiling Bears: A Zookeeper Explores the Behaviour and Emotional Life of Bears | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Helen Waldstein Wilkes | Letters from the Lost | Winner |
| 2011 | Benjamin Errett | Jew and Improved: How Choosing to be Chosen Made Me a Better Man | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Grant Lawrence | Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Joshua Knelman | Hot Art | Winner |
| 2012 | Robyn Michele Levy | Most of Me: Surviving My Medical Meltdown | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Andrew Westoll | The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Carol Shaben | Into the Abyss | Winner |
| 2013 | Kamal Al-Solaylee | Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Nahlah Ayed | A Thousand Farewells: A Reporter’s Journey from Refugee Camp to the Arab Spring | |
| 2014 | Arno Kopecky | The Oil Man and the Sea: Navigating the Northern Gateway | Winner |
| 2014 | Allen Smutylo | The Memory of Water | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Alison Wearing | Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter: Growing Up with a Gay Dad | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Lynn Thomson | Birding with Yeats | Winner |
| 2015 | Judy McFarlane | Writing with Grace: A Journey Beyond Down Syndrome | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Mark Sakamoto | Forgiveness: A Gift From My Grandparents | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Ann Walmsley | The Prison Book Club | Winner |
| 2016 | Lorimer Shenher | That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Sheila Watt-Cloutier | The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Sonja Larsen | Red Star Tattoo | Winner |
| 2017 | Duncan McCue | The Shoe Boy | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Rajiv Surendra | The Elephants in My Backyard | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Pauline Dakin | Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood | Winner |
| 2018 | James Maskalyk | Life on the Ground Floor | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Adam Shoalts | A History of Canada in Ten Maps | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Kate Harris | Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road | Winner |
| 2019 | Daemon Fairless | Mad Blood Stirring | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Terese Marie Mailhot | Heart Berries: A Memoir | Shortlist |

### 2020s

Edna Staebler Award recipients (2020-2029) :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2020 | Ann Hui | Chop Suey Nation | Winner |
| 2020 | Samra Habib | We Have Always Been Here | Shortlist |
| 2020 | John Zada | In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Vicki Laveau-Harvie | The Erratics: A Memoir | Winner |
| 2021 | Jessica J. Lee | Two Trees Make a Forest: In Search of My Family's Past Among Taiwan's Mountains and Coasts | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Rachel Matlow | Dead Mom Walking: A Memoir of Miracle Cures and Other Disasters | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Jillian Horton | We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing | Winner |
| 2023 | Hilary Peach | Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood | Winner |
| 2023 | Cody Caetano | Half-Bads in White Regalia | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Brett Popplewell | Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain, and the Search for a Hidden Past | Winner |
| 2024 | Karen Pinchin | Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Josie Teed | British Columbiana: A Millennial in a Gold Rush Town | Shortlist |