Montreal-based author Sabrina Reeves has won two prizes at the 2024 Quebec Writers’ Federation (QWF) Literary Awards for her debut novel Little Crosses.
Established in 1988, the $3,000 QWF Literary Awards annually honour the best books published by English-language writers and translators in Quebec in eight categories.
Little Crosses won the Concordia University First Book Prize and the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. It tells the story of Cassie Wolfe, a woman grappling with her mother’s deterioration from alcohol-related dementia. As she reflects on their moments and memories together, she looks inwards and sees her mother’s influence everywhere.
But her mother is losing more and more of herself — and Cassie must accept that she can’t hold on forever.
“Little Crosses doesn’t shy away from the contradictory, the messy, the human,” wrote the jury in a press statement. “It is a moving and magnetic depiction of family and the staggering capacities for cruelty and love inherent within.”
Reeves is a Montreal-based writer who grew up in Boston and New York. She’s written performance texts, plays and Little Crosses is her first book. She founded the performance company Bluemouth Inc. and has a MFA in Creative Writing from Concordia University, where she won the Dean of Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Creative Writing.
Children’s author Marie-Louise Gay won the Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature for Hopscotch. In Hopscotch, Ophelia uses her imagination — creating images of different creatures like giant rabbits with sharp teeth, to help her adjust to the daunting event of moving to a new school where she is also the only student who doesn’t speak French.
Gay is an author and illustrator of children’s literature from Montreal. She has won the Governor General’s Literary Award for children literature — illustration twice, for Rainy Day Magic and Yuck, A Love Story. Her other children’s books include Mustafa, Any Questions? and the Stella & Sam series.
The complete list of winners is as follows:
- Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction: Little Crosses by Sabrina Reeves
- Mavis Gallant Prize for Nonfiction: Furniture Music by Gail Scott
- Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature: Hopscotch by Marie-Louise Gay
- Prix de traduction littéraire de la Fondation Cole: Équateur magnétique by Kaie Kellough, translated by Stéphane Martelly
- Concordia University First Book Prize: Little Crosses by Sabrina Reeves
- A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry: National Animal by Derek Webster
- QWF Prize for Playwriting: Salesman in China by Leanna Brodie and Jovanni Sy
The winners of the Ian Ferrier Spoken Word Prize are Moe Clark, Lucia De Luca and Mac van den Hoeven.
Writer and producer Christopher DiRaddo won the Judy Mappin Community Award and Maxence Gagné won the $1,000 QWF College Writers Award. Lena Palacios won the first place carte blanche Prize, Erin Robinsong won second place and Deborah Ostrovsky won third place.
The QWF is a non-profit organization that aims to support, connect and inspire English writers in Quebec. The winners were announced at a gala in Montreal on Nov. 12, which was hosted by Ali Hassan.
Last year’s winners included Ann-Marie MacDonald for Fayne and Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson for Valley of the Birdtail.
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