Personal Stories Dominate the 2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction Shortlist

It's a deeply personal year on the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction shortlist. With today's announcement from the Writers’ Trust of Canada, we see evidence of a continuing shift in nonfiction trends. Where nonfiction prizes often favoured biographies and political books in the past, the power of personal nonfiction storytelling has, in recent years, seen memoir, travelogue, and personal essays welcomed into the ranks of finalists and even winners of major nonfiction prizes. 

And the Weston Prize, the largest nonfiction award in the country, is continuing to set that trend with a powerful 2020 shortlist of five intimate and raw personal stories. Interestingly, three of the books come from writers acclaimed in other genres: Tessa McWatt is a novelist, Lorna Crozier a poet, and Steven Heighton has worked in both fiction and poetry. All three are heavily decorated in those genres prior to their current forays into nonfiction, while both David A. Neel and Jessica J. Lee are acclaimed nonfiction authors.

A jury composed of writers Helen Knott, Sandra Martin, and Ronald Wright selected the finalists. In total, 107 titles were submitted by 65 publishers, record totals for this prize. 

The 2020 Finalists for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction are:

• Lorna Crozier for Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats), (McClelland & Stewart)
• Steven Heighton for Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos (Biblioasis)
• Jessica J. Lee for Two Trees Make a Forest: Travels Among Taiwan’s Mountains & Coasts in Search of My Family’s Past (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
• Tessa McWatt for Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging (Random House Canada)
• David A. Neel for The Way Home (UBC Press)

The Weston Prize is not only the richest nonfiction prize in Canada, with a $60,000 award for the winner and $5,000 for each finalist, it is also, this year, the only major national nonfiction prize due to the discontinuation of the RBC Taylor Prize and the postponement of this year’s Governor General’s Literary Awards.

The prizewinner will be announced on Wednesday, November 18, 2020, via the Writers’ Trust Awards: Books of the Year Edition digital event. The event will be viewable on the Writers' Trust website.

The Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction is funded by the W. Garfield Weston Foundation.