Congratulations to Katrina Best and Insomniac Press for winning the Caribbean and Canada Region Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book! Best will now go to Australia this May to compete for the overall Best First Book Prize at the Sydney Writers' Festival.

Bird Eat Bird, a collection of short stories, is a funny, smart, offbeat and insightful collection that explores themes that are equally poignant and hilarious. A thirty-year-old woman who still lives at home anticipates the experience of a third date; a teenaged vegetarian supermarket cashier struggles to scan a package of offal; an inscrutable pelican in a crowded London park decides to try something different for dinner. These artful stories are tinged with social commentary and reflect their author in that they feature characters and sensibilities from both Britain and Canada.

To see the complete list of regional winners, go to the Commonwealth Writers' Prize website.