Canisia Lubrin and Matthew Walsh among finalists for 2025 Trillium Book Awards
The prize recognizes the best book and best poetry collection from writers in Ontario
Canisia Lubrin and Matthew Walsh are among the finalists for the 2025 Trillium Book Awards presented by Ontario Creates.
Established in 1987, the prize annually recognizes the best book and best poetry collection from writers in Ontario.
The winners in both the English and French categories of the Trillium Book Award will receive $20,000, while the winner of the poetry category will receive $10,000. This year, the category for best book of children's literature in French will also be awarded.
Lubrin is shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award for Code Noir, which was also shortlisted for the 2024 Atwood Gibson Fiction prize and won the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction.
The Code Noir, or the Black Code, was a set of 59 articles decreed by Louis XVI in 1685 which regulated ownership of slaves in all French colonies. In Code Noir, Lubrin reflects on these codes to examine the legacy of enslavement and colonization — and the inherent power of Black resistance.
Lubrin is a Canadian writer, editor and academic who was born in St. Lucia and currently based in Whitby, Ont. Her debut poetry collection Voodoo Hypothesis was longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, the Pat Lowther Award and was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award. Her poetry collection The Dyzgraphxst won the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. It also won the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the 2020 Governor General's Literary Prize for poetry.
Walsh is shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award for poetry for Terrarium.
Terrarium is a poetry collection that explores queer identity and depression using a conversational writing style. Raw, confessional and often messy, the voice has a quality of intimacy and shared secrets.
Walsh is a poet known for their debut book These are not the potatoes of my youth, which was a finalist for the Trillium and Gerald Lampert Awards. Walsh has previously contributed poetry to publications like The Malahat Review and Arc. They are now based in Toronto.
Other notable writers on the shortlists include Maurice Vellekoop and Faith Arkorful.
Vellekoop's I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together is a finalist for the Trillium Book Award, which was also shortlisted for the 2025 Doug Wright Award for best Canadian comic and won the 2024 Toronto Book Award.
I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together depicts his intense childhood and difficult young adulthood as a young gay person in a strict Christian household. Set in Toronto from the 1970s, Vellekoop begins to see his relationships with his mother and father fracture. As he ventures out on his own, he explores his passion for art and is set on finding romance and is met with violent attacks and the anxiety surrounding the AIDS era.
Vellekoop is a Toronto-born writer and artist. He has been an illustrator for the past three decades, including for companies like Air Canada and Bush Irish Whiskey. He is also the author of A Nut at the Opera.
Arkorful is nominated for the Trillium Book Award for poetry for their debut collection, The Seventh Town of Ghosts.
The Seventh Town of Ghosts explores these titular towns through songs that help readers grapple with the challenges of existence and independence. The book offers insight into the power of connection, tenderness and the human spirit.
Arkorful has had her work published in Guts, Peach Mag, Prism International, Hobart, Without/pretend, The Puritan and Canthius, among others. She was a semi-finalist in the 2019 92Y Discovery Contest. Arkorful was born in Toronto, where she still resides. In 2020, she was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize.
The full shortlists for the 2025 Trillium Awards are below.
Trillium Book Award:
- Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
- My Fighting Family: Borders and Bloodlines and the Battles That Made Us by Morgan Campbell
- Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin
- Who Will Bury You? And Other Stories by Chido Muchemwa
- I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together by Maurice Vellekoop
Trillium Book Award for Poetry:
- The Seventh Town of Ghosts by Faith Arkorful
- DADDY by Jake Byrne
- Terrarium by Matthew Walsh
Prix Trillium:
- Céline au Congo by Aristote Kavungu
- Toronto jamais bleue by Marie-Hélène Larochelle
- Le prince africain, le traducteur et le nazi by Didier Leclair
- Un lourd prix à payer by Claire Ménard-Roussy
- Nickel City Fifs : Une épopée queer sudburoise sur fond de trous by Alex Tétreault
Prix du livre jeunesse Trillium:
- Rose du désert by Michèle Laframboise
- Le roi Poubelle by Eudes La Roche-Francoeur
- Le bonnet magique by Mireille Messier
The winners will be announced on June 18, 2025.
Last year's winners were Nina Dunic for The Clarion and A. Light Zachary for More Sure.
Previous Trillium Award winners include Margaret Atwood, Thomas King, Dionne Brand and Alice Munro.
