Saskatchewan Book Awards
First Book

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The Saskatchewan Book Award for First Book is presented to a Saskatchewan author (or authors) for the best first book based on the quality of writing. Genres include children's, drama, fiction, poetry, and some non-fiction.

indicates a review is available for that book

2014

  • James Daschuk – Clearing the Plains

Also shortlisted:

  • Emily Eaton – Growing Resistance
  • Bernard Flaman – Architecture of Saskatchewan
  • Elaine M. Will – Look Straight Ahead

2013

  • Melanie Schnell – While the Sun is Above Us

Also shortlisted:

  • Sandy Bonny – The Sometimes Lake
  • Bridget Keating – Red Ceiling
  • Allison Kydd – Emily via the Greyhound Bus
  • Mitch Spray – The History of Naming Cows
  • Cassie Stocks – Dance, Gladys, Dance

2011

  • Anne McDonald – To The Edge of the Sea

Also shortlisted:

  • Bill Blum – Picking Roots
  • Curtis R. McManus – Happyland
  • Adam Pottle – beautiful mutants

2010

  • Amy Jo Ehman – Prairie Feast

Also shortlisted:

  • Chris Clinton – Next Year Perhaps
  • Dianne Greenlay – Quintspinner
  • Phyllis Nakonechny – Vidh
  • Bernadette Wagner – this hot place

2009

Also shortlisted:

  • Jo-Ann Episkenew – Taking Back Our Spirits
  • K. E. Olsen – Osemo the Rainbow Zebra

2008

  • Pam Bustin – Mostly Happy

Also shortlisted:

  • Kelly Fournel – Great Women from our First Nations
  • Teri Hofford – A Good Day for Seeding
  • Lori Kohlman – Her Father's Will
  • David McLennan – Our Towns
  • Jeanne Pelletier – The Story of the Rabbit Dance
  • Carey Rigby-Wilcox – My Mummy Couldn't Read
  • Maureen Ulrich – Power Plays

2007

  • Alice Kuipers – Life on the Refrigerator Door

Also shortlisted:

  • Shirley Harris – Forgotten Gardens, Abandoned Landscapes & Remarkable Restorations
  • Mary-Ann Kirkby – I Am Hutterite
  • Barb Pacholik and Jana G. Pruden – Sour Milk and Other Saskatchewan Crime Stories
  • Anne Patton and Wilfred Burton – Fiddle Dancer
  • Joanne Weber – The Pear Orchard

2006

  • Annette Lapointe – Stolen

Also shortlisted:

  • Doris Bircham – Where Blue Grama Grows
  • Leeann Minogue – Dry Streak
  • Jennifer Still – Saltations
  • Daniel Scott Tysdal – Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method
  • Jim Warren and Kathleen Carlisle – On the Side of the People

2005

  • Eric Greenway – The Darkness Beneath All Things

Also shortlisted:

2004

  • Bonnie Dunlop – The Beauty Box

Also shortlisted:

  • Holly Luhning – Sway
  • Ruth Wright Millar – Saskatchewan Heroes and Rogues
  • David M. Quiring – CCF Colonialism in Northern Saskatchewan
  • Michael Snook – Fishing Saskatchewan

2003

  • Michael Hetherton – Grasslands

Also shortlisted:

  • Rita Ryland-Savidan & Darlene Polachic – Our Candle in the Dark
  • Marie-Louise Ternier-Gommers – Finding the Treasure Within

2002

  • Sheri Benning – Earth After Rain

Also shortlisted:

  • Ron Evans – Coming Home: Saskatchewan Remembered
  • Frances Greenslade – A Pilgrim in Ireland
  • Norman Henderson – Rediscovering the Great Plains
  • Harold Johnson – Billy Tinker

2001

  • Katherine Lawrence – Ring Finger, Left Hand

Also shortlisted:

  • Warren Goulding – Just Another Indian
  • Gerry Jones – SaskScandal
  • Al Scholz – Don't Turn Out the Lights

2000

  • Tom Molloy – The World Is Our Witness

Also shortlisted:

  • Gordon L. Barnhart – Peace, Progress and Prosperity
  • David Edney – The Three Figaro Plays
  • Patricia Elliott – The White Umbrella
  • Jennifer Wynne Webber – Defying Gravity
  • Maury Wrubleski – Controlled Burn

1999

  • Martha Blum – The Walnut Tree

Also shortlisted:

  • Brenda Baker – The Maleness of God
  • Warren Cariou – The Exalted Company of Roadside Martyrs
  • Treena Kortje – Variations of Eve

1998

  • Harriet Richards – The Lavender Child

Also shortlisted:

  • Bill Barry – People/Places: Saskatchewan and its Names
  • Ross Gordon Green – Justice in Aboriginal Communities
  • Mary-Kate MacDonald – Carving my Name
  • Helen Mourre – Landlocked
  • Vicki Summerfeldt – Women Who Dream Tigers

1997

  • Joanne Gerber – In the Misleading Absence of Light

Also shortlisted:

  • Anne M. Dooley – Plane Death
  • Minh Thanh Nguyen – Leaving Vietnam
  • Edward Willett – Soulworm

1996

  • Dave Little – Catching the Wind in a Net

Also shortlisted:

  • Tonja Gunvaldsen Klaassen – Clay Birds
  • Sylvia Legris – Circuitry of Veins
  • Allison Muri – The Hystery of the Broken Fether

1995

Also shortlisted:

  • Betty Fitzpatrick Dorion – Melanie Bluelake's Dream
  • Sherry Johnson – Pale Grace
  • Connie Sampson – Buried in the Silence
  • Eugene Stickland – Some Assembly Required

1994

  • Terry Jordan – It's A Hard Cow

Also shortlisted:

  • Louise Bernice Halfe – Bear Bones & Feathers