'The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is an annual award given for a speculative fiction novel or a book-length collection.
The name of the award comes from the title of the first novel by Phyllis Gotlieb, Sunburst (1964).
The first award was given out in 2001. The award consists of a cash prize ($1,000 Canadian for novel length work, and $500 Canadian for short stories) and a medallion. The winner is selected by jury; a new jury is struck each year.
On June 2, 2020, the Sunburst award society announced the awards were going on a hiatus due to impacts related to COVID-19.[1]
Prior to 2008, the Sunburst Award was presented in a single category. In later years, it was broken down into two or three categories, including adult, young adult, and short story.
| Year | Author | Result | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Sean Stewart | Galveston | Winner | |
| 2002 | Margaret Sweatman | When Alice Lay Down with Peter | Winner | |
| 2003 | Nalo Hopkinson | Skin Folk | Winner | |
| 2004 | Cory Doctorow | A Place So Foreign and 8 More | Winner | |
| 2005 | Geoff Ryman | Air | Winner | |
| 2006 | Holly Phillips | In the Palace of Repose | Winner | |
| 2007 | Mark Frutkin | Fabrizio's Return | Winner |
| Year | Author | Result | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Nalo Hopkinson | The New Moon's Arms | Winner | [2] |
| 2009 | Andrew Davidson | The Gargoyle | Winner | [3][4] |
| Jes Battis | Night Child | Finalist | [4][5] | |
| Dave Duncan | The Alchemist’s Code | Finalist | [4][5] | |
| Shari Lapena | Things Go Flying | Finalist | [4][5] | |
| Jo Walton | Half a Crown | Finalist | [4][5] | |
| 2010 | A. M. Dellamonica | Indigo Springs | Winner | [6] |
| Charles de Lint | The Mystery of Grace | Finalist | [6][7] | |
| Cory Doctorow | Makers | Finalist | [6][7] | |
| Karl Schroeder | The Sunless Countries | Finalist | [6][7] | |
| Robert Charles Wilson | Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America | Finalist | [6][7] | |
| 2011 | Guy Gavriel Kay | Under Heaven | Winner | [8][9] |
| Robert J. Sawyer | Watch | Finalist | [9][10] | |
| Douglas Smith | Chimerascope | Finalist | [9][10] | |
| S. M. Stirling | Taint in the Blood | Finalist | [9][10] | |
| Hayden Trenholm | Stealing Home | Finalist | [9][10] | |
| 2012 | Geoff Ryman | Paradise Tales | Winner | [11] |
| K. V. Johansen | Blackdog | Finalist | [11][12] | |
| David Nickle | Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism | Finalist | [11][12] | |
| Ryan Oakley | Technicolor Ultra Mall | Finalist | [11][12] | |
| Michael Rowe | Enter, Night | Finalist | [11][12] | |
| Caitlin Sweet | The Pattern Scars | Finalist | [11][12] | |
| 2013 | Martine Desjardins (trans. by Fred A. Reed and David Homel) | Maleficium | Winner | |
| Gerard Collins | Finton Moon | Finalist | [13] | |
| Derryl Murphy | Over the Darkened Landscape | Finalist | [13] | |
| Emily Schultz | The Blondes | Finalist | [13] | |
| Rio Youers | Westlake Soul | Finalist | [13] | |
| 2014 | Ruth Ozeki | A Tale for the Time Being | Winner | [14] |
| 2015 | Thomas King | The Back of the Turtle | Winner | [15] |
| Nick Cutter | The Troop | Finalist | [15][16] | |
| Emily St. John Mandel | Station Eleven | Finalist | [15][16] | |
| Jo Walton | My Real Children | Finalist | [15][16] | |
| Ian Weir | Will Starling | Finalist | [15][16] | |
| 2016 | Gemma Files | Experimental Film | Winner | [17] |
| Katherine Fawcett | The Little Washer of Sorrows | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| Silvia Moreno-Garcia | Signal to Noise | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| Heather O'Neill | Daydreams of Angels | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| Robert Charles Wilson | The Affinities | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| 2017 | Claire Humphrey | Spells of Blood and Kin | Winner | [19][20] |
| Ami McKay | The Witches of New York | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| Sylvain Neuvel | Sleeping Giants | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| Jo Walton | Necessity | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| Robert Charles Wilson | Last Year | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| 2018 | David Demchuk | The Bone Mother | Winner | [22][23] |
| Omar El Akkad | American War | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| Terri Favro | Sputnik’s Children | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| Fonda Lee | Jade City | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| Eden Robinson | Son of a Trickster | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| 2019 | Andromeda Romano Lax | Plum Rains | Winner | [25][26] |
| Amber Dawn | Sodom Road Exit | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| Kate Heartfield | Armed in Her Fashion | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| Rich Larson | Annex | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| Eden Robinson | Trickster Drift | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| 2020 | Silvia Moreno-Garcia | Gods of Jade and Shadow | Winner | [28][29] |
| Scott R. Jones | Shout Kill Revel Repeat | Finalist | [29] | |
| Helen Marshall | The Migration | Finalist | [29] | |
| Karen McBride | Crow Winter | Finalist | [29] | |
| Richard Van Camp | Moccasin Square Gardens | Finalist | [29] |
The Sunburst Award for Short Story was introduced in 2016.
| Year | Author | Result | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Catherine A. MacLeod | "Hide and Seek" (Playground of Lost Toys) | Winner | [17] |
| Charlotte Ashley | “La Héron” (F&SF 3-4/15) | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| Rebecca Campbell | “The Glad Hosts” (Lackington’s #7) | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| Mike Donoghue | “Stuck in the Past” (Abyss & Apex #54) | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| Kelly Robson | “Two-Year Man” (Asimov’s, August 2015) | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| Peter Wendt | “Get the Message” (Second Contacts) | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| 2017 | A. C. Wise | "The Sailing of the Henry Charles Morgan in Six Pieces of Scrimshaw (1841)" | Winner | [19][20] |
| K. T. Bryski | “La Corriveau” (Strange Horizons 10/3/16) | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| James Alan Gardner | “The Dog and the Sleepwalker” (Strangers Among Us) | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| Helen Marshall | “Caro in Carno” (The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu) | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| A. C. Wise | “The Men from Narrow Houses” (Liminal Stories Spring/Summer ’16) | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| 2018 | Sandra Kasturi | "The Beautiful Gears of Dying" | Winner | [22][23] |
| Rich Larson | “Spiked” (Abyss & Apex 6/17) | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| Karin Lowachee | “Meridian” (Where the Stars Rise) | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| Rati Mehrotra | “Hacker’s Faire” (Cast of Wonders 3/17) | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| Kate Story | “Animate” (Cli-fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change) | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| 2019 | Senaa Ahmad | "The Glow-in-the-Dark Girls" | Winner | [25][26] |
| Madeline Ashby | “Domestic Violence” (Future Tense 3/26/18) | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| Malon Edwards | “Candied Sweets, Cornbread, and Black-Eyed Peas” (Sword and Sonnet) | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| Rich Larson | “Meat And Salt And Sparks” (Tor.com 6/6/18) | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| A. C. Wise | “The Time Traveler’s Husband” (Shimmer 11/18) | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| 2020 | Rebecca Campbell | "The Fourth Trimester is the Strangest" | Winner | [28][29] |
| Amal El-Mohtar | “Florilegia” (The Mythic Dream) | Finalist | [29] | |
| Kate Heartfield | “The Inland Beacon” (Tesseracts Twenty-Two: Alchemy and Artifacts) | Finalist | [29] | |
| Catherine Kim | “The Hundred Gardens” (Nat. Brut Spring ’19) | Finalist | [29] | |
| Richard Van Camp | “Wheetago War II: Summoners” (Moccasin Square Gardens) | Finalist | [29] |
| Year | Author | Result | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Joanne Proulx | Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet | Winner | [2][30] |
| 2009 | Cory Doctorow | Little Brother | Winner | [3][4][30] |
| Kelley Armstrong | The Summoning | Finalist | [4][5] | |
| Charles de Lint | Dingo | Finalist | [4][5] | |
| Eileen Kernaghan | Wild Talent: A Novel of the Supernatural | Finalist | [4][5] | |
| Max Turner | Night Runner | Finalist | [4][5] | |
| 2010 | Hiromi Goto | Half World | Winner | [6][30] |
| Megan Crewe | Give Up the Ghost | Finalist | [6][7] | |
| Maureen Garvie | Amy By Any Other Name | Finalist | [6][7] | |
| Lesley Livingston | Wondrous Strange | Finalist | [6][7] | |
| Arthur Slade | The Hunchback Assignment | Finalist | [6][7] | |
| 2011 | Paul Glennon | Bookweirder | Winner | [8][9][30] |
| Holly Bennett | Shapeshifter | Finalist | [9][10] | |
| Erin Bow | Plain Kate | Finalist | [9][10] | |
| Charles de Lint | The Painted Boy | Finalist | [9][10] | |
| Robert Paul Weston | Dust City | Finalist | [9][10] | |
| 2012 | Catherine Austen | All Good Children | Winner | [11][30] |
| R. J. Anderson | Ultraviolet | Finalist | [11][12] | |
| Jamieson Findlay | The Summer of Permanent Wants | Finalist | [11][12] | |
| Evan Munday | The Dead Kid Detective Agency | Finalist | [11][12] | |
| Moira Young | Blood Red Road | Finalist | [11][12] | |
| 2013 | Rachel Hartman | Seraphina | Winner | [30] |
| Michael Bedard | The Green Man | Finalist | [13] | |
| Cory Doctorow | Pirate Cinema | Finalist | [13] | |
| Susan Juby | Bright’s Light | Finalist | [13] | |
| Moira Young | Rebel Heart | Finalist | [13] | |
| 2014 | Charles de Lint | The Cats of Tanglewood Forest | Winner | [14][30] |
| 2015 | Cecil Castellucci | Tin Star | Winner | [15] |
| Jonathan Auxier | The Night Gardener | Finalist | [15][16] | |
| Alyxandra Harvey | A Breath of Frost | Finalist | [15][16] | |
| Eileen Kernaghan | Sophie, In Shadow | Finalist | [15][16] | |
| Caitlin Sweet | The Door in the Mountain | Finalist | [15][16] | |
| 2016 | Leah Bobet | An Inheritance of Ashes | Winner | [17] |
| David Carroll | Sight Unseen | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| Mikaela Everett | The Unquiet | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| Kenneth Oppel | The Nest | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| Neil Smith | Boo | Finalist | [17][18] | |
| 2017 | Jonathan Auxier | Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard | Winner | [19][20] |
| Lena Coakley | Worlds of Ink and Shadow | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| Marina Cohen | The Inn Between | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| Catherine Egan | Julia Vanishes | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| Ian Donald Keeling | The Skids | Finalist | [20][21] | |
| 2018 | Cherie Dimaline | The Marrow Thieves | Winner | [22][23] |
| Charis Cotter | The Painting | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| Fonda Lee | Exo | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| Kari Maaren | Weave a Circle Round | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| Wendy Orr | Dragonfly Song | Finalist | [23][24] | |
| 2019 | Rachel Hartman | Tess of the Road | Winner | [25][26] |
| Sebastien de Castell | Spellslinger | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| Regan McDonell | Black Chuck | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| Rebecca Schaeffer | Not Even Bones | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| Patrick Weekes | Feeder | Finalist | [26][27] | |
| 2020 | Allison Mills | The Ghost Collector | Winner | [28][29] |
| Nafiza Azad | The Candle and the Flame | Finalist | [29] | |
| Sara Cassidy | Nevers | Finalist | [29] | |
| Aviaq Johnston | Those Who Dwell Below | Finalist | [29] | |
| Jess Keating | Nikki Tesla and the Ferret-Proof Death Ray | Finalist | [29] |
For a complete and up to date listing of current and past long-listed and short-listed works, please see the Sunburst Award Website.
The Sunburst Award administration and juries use the broadest possible definition of speculative fiction for eligibility purposes: "science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, horror, surrealism, fantastique, fabulism, myth and legend, fantastical storytelling, and any other writing beyond the strictly realistic". To be eligible for the award, a work must be published between January 1 and December 31 of the previous year. Only Canadian citizens and landed immigrants are eligible.
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