The West Coast Book Prize Society announced the nominees for this year's BC Book Prizes on March 12th. Spread out over seven awards, the BC Book Prizes highlight the best of BC books, published over the last year.

Several of our LPG member publishers walked away with nominations for this year's awards:

Anvil Press for Everything Rustles by Jane Silcott for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize; Wood by Jennica Harper for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize; and This Day in Vancouver by Jesse Donaldson for the Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award

In early March the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council revealed the shortlist for the 2013 BMO Winterset Award, which celebrates books by Newfoundland and Labrador authors published in the last year that display excellence in writing. The finalists were chosen by Ruth Lawrence and Agnes Walsh, this year's jury.

Our congratulations go out to Goose Lane Editions and Carmelita McGrath for Escape Velocity, the long-awaited follow-up collection after the Atlantic Poetry Prize-winning To the New World.

The winner will be announced at Government House in St. John's on March 20th. The finalists will read and answer questions at a public reception on March 19th at The Rooms. To see a full list of this year's nominees and to learn more about this award visit the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council website.

2014 marks the 26th edition of the annual Lambda Literary Awards which, across 24 award categories, highlights excellence in LGBT literature published over the previous year. Given out each year by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation, this year has 12 Canadians among the finalists.

Our congratulations go out to our member publishers and their authors that have received nominations:

TSAR Publications and Trish Salah for Wanting in Arabic, in the Transgender Fiction category.

Caitlin Press and Andrea Routley for Jane and the Whales, in the LGBT Debut Fiction category.