Manitoba Book Awards shelved after study recommends disbanding 'unsustainable' program

An organizer of Manitoba's biggest night for books says they were made "heartsick" by the decision to end the awards program that celebrated literary talent in the province for over three decades.

Over the last several years, the Manitoba Book Awards were organized by a coalition of Plume Winnipeg (formerly called the Winnipeg International Writers Festival), the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, the Winnipeg Public Library and the Manitoba Writers' Guild.

Up until 2023, the book awards offered about 10 prizes annually in categories such as non-fiction, fiction, poetry and illustration, as well as specialized honours devoted to emerging, francophone and Indigenous writers.

But the program has become "unsustainable," says a commissioned feasibility study report that was publicly released Thursday.

Organizers said they've accepted the report's recommendation that their coalition be dissolved and the awards program be disbanded.

"None of us knew what the recommendations were going to be, but we did all know that it was becoming unsupportable," Charlene Diehl, executive director of Plume Winnipeg, told CBC News on Friday.

"We could not maintain course, the way it was. We didn't have the time or the finances or the person power."

Kayla Calder, an Ottawa-based consultant hired to conduct the Manitoba Book Award feasibility study, researched 13 similar programs across Canada and found that most have an annual operating budget of $70,000 to $120,000.

In contrast, the Manitoba Book Awards have run on less than $30,000 per year on average, she wrote in the report.

Changes to provincial arts funding in 2021 "dramatically" affected their resources and the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in further challenges, the report says.

The awards attract readers to Manitoba authors and publishers, boosting sales and careers, she wrote.

While the program is deeply wanted by the community, it has been operating in an environment that doesn't support its existence, organizers told Calder in the report.

"The current system is not working, and the landscape has become increasingly unstable," Calder wrote.

"Disbanding the umbrella program creates an opportunity to explore new approaches to some awards and allows space for new initiatives to emerge."

New chapters on horizon

Sponsored awards will be returned to their respective funders in the hopes that they will continue to be administered, said Matt Joudrey, president of the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers.

"The coalition has worked tirelessly over the years to keep the awards alive and make sure that they're a valid and vibrant set of awards, but the resources have just been stretched so thin," said Joudrey, who also is the publisher of Winnipeg's At Bay Press.

Calder's feasibility study also explored potential possibilities for future iterations of the program, including merging with the Saskatchewan and Alberta book award programs to create a new "Prairie Book Award" program, similar to the Atlantic Book Awards.

Joudrey and Diehl both hope something new will emerge from the ashes of the book award.

"I don't know what it will be, and part of the way to make that possible is to get out of the way of it, but also to provide this extraordinary ground for something new to be built on," Diehl said.

The challenges faced by the Manitoba Book Awards are not unique and have been hitting book award administrators across the country, she said.

"It is really an important part of a literary culture in any place, and it's heartbreaking, honestly," she said.

"To not have awards means that our Manitoba writers are competing on a national scale for recognition in national awards, which is great, but everybody can't make it there."

In a statement to CBC News on Friday, Culture Minister Glen Simard said his department has been meeting with members of Manitoba's publishing industry to find solutions going forward so local authors can continue to be recognized.

Two community sessions to discuss the feasibility study report will be held in Winnipeg next week.