Zoe Whittall, Jordan Abel among writers shortlisted for ReLit Awards

The Best Kind of People, Zoe Whittall's Scotiabank Giller Prize-nominated novel, and Injun, Jordan Abel's Griffin Poetry Prize-winning collection, are among the books honoured on the ReLit Awards' annual "long shortlists."

• How Jordan Abel deconstructed the racism in old western novels and won the Griffin Poetry Prize
• Zoe Whittall on finding the right voice(s) in her new novel, The Best Kind of People

The ReLit Awards honour the best Canadian books published by independent presses. There are three categories: novel, short fiction and poetry. Winners receive the ReLit Ring, which consists of four dials that are inscribed with the alphabet.

The full shortlist in the novel category includes 24 books: 

• The Bus by Adam Pottle
• Been in the Storm So Long by Terry Jordan
• Listening for Jupiter by Pierre-Luc Landry
• Today I Learned It Was You by Edward Riche
• Into the Current by Jared Young
• Hungary-Hollywood Express by Eric Plamondon
• Weekend by Jane Eaton Hamilton
• English is Not a Magic Language by Jacques Poulin
• Mister Nightingale by Paul Bowdring
• Brothers by David Clerson
• Niagara Motel by Ashley Little
• The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall
• Psychomachia by Sanita Fejzic
• The Angel's Jig by Daniel Poliquin
• Running on Fumes by Christian Guay-Poliquin
• The Hope by Craig Francis Power
• This Marlowe by Michelle Butler Hallett
• The Adjustment League by Mike Barnes
• Blackbird Calling by Laura Swart
• All That Sang by Lydia Perovic
• Wigford Rememberies by Kyp Harness
• The Captain of Kinnoull Hill by Jamie Tennant
• Fabulous Fictions & Peculiar Practices by Leon Rooke
• The Poet is a Radio by Jack Hannan

The full shortlist in the short fiction category includes 18 books: 

• As If by Alban Goulden
• The Path of Most Resistance by Russell Wangersky
• Worldly Goods by Alice Petersen
• For All the Men and For All the Women I've Known by Danila Botha
• Middle-Aged Boys & Girls by Diane Bracuk
• Canadian Shield by Kelley Aitken
• Jettison by Nathaniel G. Moore
• Two Man Tent by Robert Chafe
• The Museum at the End of the World by John Metcalf
• Bad Things Happen by Kris Bertin
• Waiting for the Cyclone by Leesa Dean
• How to Pick Up a Maid in Statue Square by Rea Tarvydas
• Cretacea & Other Stories From the Badlands by Martin West
• Four-Letter Words by Chad Pelley
• Swinging Through Dixie by Leon Rooke
• The Day of the Dead by Catherine Owen
• Double Dutch by Laura Trunkey
• Rising Abruptly by Gisele Villeneuve

The full shortlist in the poetry category includes 30 books:

• The Holy Nothing by Jessica Hiemstra
• If I Were in a Cage I'd Reach out For You by Adele Barclay
• Saint Twin by Sarah Burgoyne
• All of Us Reticent, Here, Together by Stephen Brockwell
• Nineteen Fifty-Seven by Jim McLean
• The Exile Papers: Part Four by Wayne Clifford
• Every Night of Our Lives by Rocco de Giacomo
• Little Dogs by Michael Crummey
• Stampede and the Westness of West by Aritha van Herk
• Yes or Nope by Meaghan Strimas
• Silent Sister by Beth Everest
• After All the Scissor Work is Done by David Fraser
• Meditatio Placentae by Monty Reid
• The Hobo's Crowbar by JonArno Lawson
• The Unlit Path Behind the House by Margo Wheaton
• Tight Wire by Kerry Gilbert
• Assdeep in Wonder by Christopher Gudgeon
• The Days by M.A.C Farrant
• Pound @ Guantánamo by Clint Burnham
• Canticles I by George Elliott Clarke
• A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent by Stuart Ross
• Metanoia by Sharon McCartney
• 3 Summers by Lisa Robertson
• Shiner by Eva H.D.
• Kids in Triage by Kilby Smith-McGregor
• Injun by Jordan Abel
• Hard Work Cheering Up Sad Machines by Jason Heroux
• Touch Anywhere to Begin by Jim Nason
• All the Gold Hurts My Mouth by Katherine Leyton
• Tell Them It Was Mozart by Angeline Schellenberg