TORONTO — Toronto author Zak Jones has won the top fiction prize at this year’s Writers’ Trust Awards.

Jones received the $70,000 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for his debut novel “Fancy Gap,” which tells the story of three estranged family members in Appalachia struggling with loss and poverty. Jones previously won a Writers’ Trust award for emerging writers in 2023.

Canadian artist and poet Moez Surani hosted the ceremony, where the Writers’ Trust handed out eight book awards and more than $400,000 in cash prizes at CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio.

British Columbia-based author Robert Moor took home the $75,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction for “In Trees: An Exploration,” which examines what trees can teach us about life.

Misha Solomon won the $12,000 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers for his collection of narrative poems in “My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet,” which weaves a fictionalized portrait of Solomon’s great-grandfather with his own contemporary queer life in Montreal.

Writer, poet and editor Rachel Rose received the inaugural $25,000 Nancy Flight Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Editing for her work on the memoir “Humanitarienne: A Doctor’s Stories from the Conflict Zone” which traces physician Kirsten Johnson’s career working in war-torn and disaster-affected regions.

Several authors won awards for career achievements, including Margaret Christakos, who received the $60,000 Latner Griffin Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize, and Maria Campbell, who won the $40,000 Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life.

“The Marrow Thieves” author Cherie Dimaline received the $40,000 Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People, while Shaena Lambert won the $25,000 Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award, awarded to an outstanding writer of fiction in their mid-career.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2026.