Billy-Ray Belcourt, Jessica Johns in the running for the $60K First Novel Award

TORONTO — A horror story that highlights the cultural significance of dreams and an exploration of intimate encounters in a northern Alberta town are among the six debut novels in the running for this year’s Amazon Canada First Novel Award. 

Jessica Johns’ “Bad Cree,” published by HarperCollins, and Billy-Ray Belcourt’s “A Minor Chorus,” from Hamish Hamilton Canada, are vying for the $60,000 top prize.

“Bad Cree” is about a Cree millennial grappling with dreams that have “terrifying, real-life consequences” and prompt her to seek strength from her female relatives. 

Meanwhile Griffin Poetry Prize winner Belcourt is in the running for “A Minor Chorus,” which features a narrator who goes back to his hometown to seek answers to “existential questions about family, love and happiness.” 

Other prize finalists are Kai Thomas’s “In the Upper Country” from Viking Canada; Andre Forget’s “In The City of Pigs” from Dundurn Press Ltd./Rare Machines; William Ping’s “Hollow Bamboo” and Jasmine Sealy’s “The Island of Forgetting,” both from HarperCollins. 

Each finalist will receive $6,000. The winner will be announced in Toronto on May 31 at a ceremony co-hosted by Amazon and The Walrus.

The winner of the Youth Short Story prize, which recognizes teenage authors, will also be announced at the ceremony. 

The First Novel Award, established in 1976, has previously recognized some of Canada’s best-known authors, including Michael Ondaatje, Joy Kogawa and Joan Barfoot. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2023.

The Canadian Press