news | Tuesday September 23, 2025

Talonbooks Authors Take Home Awards at 2025 BC & Yukon Book Prizes

We are delighted to share that Leanne Dunic and Fred Wah both took home awards at the 2025 BC & Yukon Book Awards Gala! ⁠
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wet by Leanne Dunic was awarded the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, given each year to an outstanding book of poetry! wet is a gorgeous work of poetry and photography that follows a Chinese American model in Singapore as she thirsts for fair labour rights, climate justice, and human connection.⁠ Of Dunic’s collection, the jury says, “wet moves with the clarity and patience of water itself, layering observations of place with intimate reckonings of identity. Dunic’s poems are simultaneously tender and unyielding, offering a lens on how the personal and ecological intertwine.” See their full statement here.
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Author, educator, and literary icon Fred Wah received the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence! A prolific author (is a door, Scree), an appointee to the Order of Canada, Canada’s fifth Parliamentary Poet Laureate, and a beloved pillar of community, we couldn’t be happier to see Fred Wah recognized for his tremendous achievements. ⁠The jury notes in their statement that “in a province full of writers and readers with overlapping identities and histories, Wah shows us all how to plumb the hyphen for new meanings.” Read their complete statement here.
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A huge congratulations to Leanne and Fred, and to all of this year’s winners and nominees.