Natch by Darrell Kinsey (University of Iowa Press) has won the $15,000 Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize. The Center said, "Set in the foothills of north Georgia, Natch tells the story of a tree cutter, nicknamed Natch, whose solitary lifestyle is upended when he meets--and falls in love with--Asha, an alluring woman who works the nightshift at a convenience store."
One of the judges, Adam Haslett, said, "In this year's winner, Natch, readers will discover a work of art that renders in clear-sighted, almost crystalline prose a world few of us have visited, and fewer still have understood with the acumen and love Darrell Kinsey displays on nearly every page. Like all great fiction, it's both a pleasure and an education."
---
Aaron Williams won the C$10,000 (about US$7,230) Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction for his book The Last Logging Show: A Forestry Family at the End of an Era (Harbour Publishing). Administered Wilfrid Laurier University, the annual prize "recognizes Canadian writers for a first or second work of creative nonfiction with a Canadian locale or significance," Quill & Quire reported.
Harry Froklage, one of the judges, said Williams "has written a book about such a community. The Last Logging Show is a compelling chronicle of the lives of loggers and their families as their rugged way of life is endangered by global economics, environmental activism and the assertion of sovereignty over their own resources by Haida Gwaii's Indigenous people. As a logger's son who has abandoned the logger's life, Williams presents a nuanced, often very funny, examination of a divisive topic through the voices of those who have lived their lives in the diminishing shadow of old growth forests."
Martin Bauman, also a Halifax journalist, was the other finalist this year for his book Hell of a Ride: Chasing Home and Survival on a Bicycle Voyage Across Canada (Pottersfield Press). An award ceremony for Williams will be held on April 1, 2026.