The ReLit Awards are Canadian literary prizes awarded annually to book-length works in the novel, short-story and poetry categories.[1] Founded in 2000 by Newfoundland filmmaker and author Kenneth J. Harvey.[2]
Subtitled Ideas, Not Money the main title of the awards is short for Regarding Literature, Reinventing Literature, and Relighting Literature.[3] The awards were conceived by Harvey as an alternative to larger mainstream prizes such as the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Awards.[4] There is no money awarded for the prize; in the first two years, the winners received a nominal prize of one Canadian dollar,[5] but since 2003 the recipients have been presented with a silver ring designed by Newfoundland artisan Christopher Kearney, featuring four inlaid movable dials engraved with all of the letters of the alphabet.[6]
The award went on hiatus in the late 2010s, with no shortlists or winners announced for 2018, 2019 or 2020.
It was announced in January 2021 that management of the award has been taken over by Katherine Alexandra Harvey, with the project expanding to incorporate an online literary journal and a mentorship program for young writers.[7] In April 2021, the shortlists and winners for all of the hiatus years were announced throughout the month.[8]
In September 2023, Harvey announced that the awards will go on hiatus after that year's announcements, due to funding difficulties.[9]
| Title | Result | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Skin | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| This Place Called Absence | ||||
| Just for Comfort | ||||
| Bafflegab | ||||
| 2002 | Lenny Bruce Is Dead | Winner | ||
| 2003 | Please | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| Necessary Betrayals | ||||
| 2004 | Still Life With June | Winner | ||
| Kameleon Man | Nominee | |||
| 2005 | An English Gentleman | Winner | ||
| Mackerel Sky | Nominee | |||
| Sointula | ||||
| Blind Night | ||||
| 2006 | Alligator | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| 2007 | Bow Grip | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| Miss Lamp | ||||
| De Niro's Game | ||||
| ManBug | ||||
| All This Town Remembers | ||||
| Suddenly the Minotaur | ||||
| Orphans of Winter | ||||
| Season of Iron | ||||
| 2008 | Winner | |||
| Orphan Love | Nominee | |||
| Soucouyant | ||||
| Crown Shyness | ||||
| Big White Knuckles | ||||
| 2009 | Chase & Haven | Winner | ||
| Cleavage | Nominee | |||
| Shuck | ||||
| Girls Fall Down | ||||
| Charlie Muskrat | ||||
| Anna's Shadow | ||||
| 2010 | Winner | |||
| Overqualified | Nominee | |||
| After the Red Night | ||||
| Wrong Bar | ||||
| Away From Everywhere | ||||
| Holding Still for As Long As Possible | ||||
| 2011 | Blood Relatives | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| One Bloody Thing After Another | ||||
| Krakow Melt | ||||
| Good Evening, Central Laundromat | ||||
| Book | ||||
| Sweet England | ||||
| 2012 | Monoceros | Winner | ||
| Dirty Feet | Nominee | |||
| Prick | ||||
| Flowers of Spit | ||||
| Break Me | ||||
| Easy to Like | ||||
| 2013 | Life Is About Losing Everything | Winner | [10] | |
| Maidenhead | Nominee | |||
| Heidegger Stairwell | ||||
| Lockpick Pornography | ||||
| Texas | ||||
| Whitetail Shooting Gallery | ||||
| Dirty Bird | ||||
| Love and the Mess We're In | ||||
| Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies | ||||
| Minor Episodes Major Ruckus | ||||
| Given | ||||
| Mount Royal | ||||
| Husk | ||||
| 2014 | Savage 1986-2011 | Winner | ||
| Sneaker Wave | Nominee | |||
| Fallsy Downsies | ||||
| Juanita Wildrose, My True Life | ||||
| Infidelity | ||||
| Say Nothing Saw Wood | ||||
| Paradise Revisited | ||||
| Anatomy of a Girl Gang | ||||
| Caught | ||||
| Rogue Cells/ Carbon Harbour | ||||
| Every Little Thing | ||||
| Burning from the Inside | ||||
| 2015 | Winner | [11] | ||
| Hysteric | Nominee | |||
| Savour | ||||
| Jazz | ||||
| Just Beneath My Skin | ||||
| Universal Bureau of Copyrights | ||||
| Celia's Song | ||||
| North East | ||||
| Carafola | ||||
| New Tab | ||||
| and Dyment | Motion Sickness | |||
| Bunny and Shark | ||||
| My Grandmother's Pill | ||||
| Motherwild | ||||
| Pedal | ||||
| Mr. Jones | ||||
| Barker | ||||
| Walt | ||||
| Polyamorous Love Song | ||||
| 2016 | One Hundred Days of Rain | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| Too Much on the Inside | ||||
| Split | ||||
| Where Did You Sleep Last Night | ||||
| Winnie's Tongue | ||||
| Martin John | ||||
| All-Day Breakfast | ||||
| Chinkstar | ||||
| One Hit Wonders | ||||
| 2017 | Wigford Rememberies | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| Mister Nightingale | ||||
| Brothers | ||||
| Psychomachia | ||||
| Running on Fumes | ||||
| This Marlowe | ||||
| Weekend | ||||
| Been in the Storm So Long | ||||
| Listening for Jupiter | ||||
| Niagara Motel | ||||
| All That Sang | ||||
| Hungary-Hollywood Express | ||||
| English Is Not a Magic Language | ||||
| Today I Learned It Was You | ||||
| Fabulous Fictions & Peculiar Practices | ||||
| Blackbird Calling | ||||
| Into the Current | ||||
| 2018 | Long Ride Yellow | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| Tarry This Night | ||||
| Leave Us in Peace | ||||
| You Are Among Monsters | ||||
| In the Cage | ||||
| Small Claims | ||||
| Dying Behaviour of Cats | ||||
| Touching Strangers | ||||
| Only the Devil Is Here | ||||
| Skeet Love | ||||
| In Every Wave | ||||
| To Me You Seem Giant | ||||
| 2019 | Marry, Bang, Kill | Winner | ||
| Queen Solomon | Nominee | [12] | ||
| Army of the Brave and Accidental | ||||
| Atomic Road | ||||
| In Which | ||||
| Little Beast | ||||
| Amusement Park of Constant Sorrow | ||||
| No Quarter | ||||
| No Good Asking | ||||
| Hummingbird | ||||
| Adjacentland | ||||
| Twin Studies | ||||
| Black Star | ||||
| Chameleon | ||||
| 2020 | Skin House | Winner | ||
| Proof I Was Here | Nominee | |||
| Crocuses Hatch from Snow | ||||
| There Has to Be a Knife | ||||
| Itzel I: A Tlatelolco Awakening | ||||
| This Is Agatha Falling | ||||
| Dual Citizens | ||||
| Provisionally Yours | ||||
| Crow | ||||
| We All Will Be Received | ||||
| 2021 | Fake It So Real | Winner | ||
| Always Brave | Nominee | [13] | ||
| All I Ask | ||||
| Seeing Martin | ||||
| Butter Honey Pig Bread | ||||
| Throw Down Your Shadows | ||||
| Dirty Birds | ||||
| Fair | ||||
| Noopiming | ||||
| After Elias | ||||
| Fauna | ||||
| 2022 | Avenue of Champions | Winner | [14] | |
| Nominee | [15] | |||
| Dante's Indiana | ||||
| Suture | ||||
| Instructor | ||||
| Saltus | ||||
| I, Gloria Grahame | ||||
| Monster Child | ||||
| Saturday Morning | ||||
| We, Jane | ||||
| 2023 | Querelle of Roberval | Winner | [16] | |
| Possessed | Nominee | [17] | ||
| Wonder World | ||||
| The Wards | ||||
| Good Girl | ||||
| My Indian Summer | ||||
| A Kid Called Chatter | ||||
| Junie | ||||
| The Second Substance | ||||
| Fearnoch | ||||
| Tear | ||||
| Hotline |
| Author(s) | Title | Result | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Hymns to Phenomena | Winner | [18] | |
| Change Room | Nominee | [19] | ||
| Swimming Among the Ruins | ||||
| Dyssemia Sleaze | ||||
| Mining for Sun | ||||
| 2002 | Winner | [20] | ||
| Eunoia | Nominee | |||
| Pigeon | ||||
| 2003 | Excessive Love Prostheses | Winner | ||
| Disturbances of Progress | Nominee | |||
| Seven Pages Missing (Vol. 2) | ||||
| Mycological Studies | ||||
| 2004 | Small Arguments | Winner | ||
| Ashland | Nominee | |||
| House Built of Rain | ||||
| 2005 | Night Street Repairs | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| Mirabel | ||||
| Said Like Reeds or Things | ||||
| 2006 | Hot Poppies | Winner | ||
| Ligatures | Nominee | |||
| In the Scaffolding | ||||
| 2007 | Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method | Winner | [21] | |
| Black | Nominee | |||
| I, Nadja | ||||
| and Darren Wershler-Henry | Apostrophe | |||
| All the Lifters | ||||
| Types of Canadian Women | ||||
| Tear Down | ||||
| What You Can't Have | ||||
| 2008 | Soft Geography | Winner | [22] | |
| Nominee | ||||
| All Things Said & Done | ||||
| Æthel | ||||
| Sitcom | ||||
| Two Hemispheres | ||||
| I Cut My Finger | ||||
| 2009 | Fear Not | Winner | ||
| Noble Gas, Penny Black | Nominee | |||
| Little Hunger | ||||
| Dead Cars in Managua | ||||
| Penny Dreadful | ||||
| Troubled | ||||
| Sentenced to Light | ||||
| 2010 | Red Nest | Winner | [23] [24] | |
| Nominee | ||||
| Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip | ||||
| Paper Radio | ||||
| Always Die Before Your Mother | ||||
| 2011 | Sweet | Winner | ||
| Marimba Forever | Nominee | |||
| Every Day in the Morning (Slow) | ||||
| You Know Who You Are | ||||
| 2012 | Jumping in the Asylum | Winner | ||
| Woods Wolf Girl | Nominee | |||
| Straight Razor Days | ||||
| Grunt of the Minotaur | ||||
| Post-Apothecary | ||||
| 2013 | Omens in the Year of the Ox | Winner | ||
| Cloudy with a Fire in the Basement | Nominee | |||
| New and Selected Poems | ||||
| Natural Capital | ||||
| Riot Lung | ||||
| Our Gleaming Bones Unrobed | ||||
| Conflict | ||||
| Trobairitz | ||||
| Personals | ||||
| 2014 | Placeholder | Winner | ||
| Complete Surprising Fragments of Improbable Books | Nominee | |||
| What the World Said | ||||
| How This World Comes to an End | ||||
| Multitudes | ||||
| This Cockeyed World | ||||
| How Poetry Saved My Life | ||||
| Coping With Emotions and Otters | ||||
| Monkey Soap | ||||
| Forge | ||||
| Liquidities | ||||
| Hard Ass | ||||
| Knife Throwing Through Self-Hypnosis | ||||
| Love's Not the Way To | ||||
| Our Days in Vaudeville | ||||
| For Display Purposes Only | ||||
| 2015 | MxT | Winner | ||
| Rolli | Mavor's Bones | Nominee | [25] | |
| On Malice | ||||
| Yaw | ||||
| School | ||||
| Poems Suitable to Current Material Conditions | ||||
| Broom Broom | ||||
| Thou | ||||
| Two Tragedies in 429 Breaths | ||||
| After Words | ||||
| In the Museum of Leonardo Da Vinci | ||||
| Easy Fix | ||||
| When We Were Old | ||||
| Open Letter: Woman Against Violence Against Women | ||||
| House Dreams | ||||
| 2016 | Winner | |||
| Last Stop, Lonesome Town | Nominee | |||
| Monologue Dogs | ||||
| Transmitter and Receiver | ||||
| Rotten Perfect Mouth | ||||
| Asbestos Heights | ||||
| Love Me Tender | ||||
| Bodymap | ||||
| Collected Poems | ||||
| Exquisite Monsters | ||||
| Dear Leader | ||||
| This World We Invented | ||||
| Foreign Park | ||||
| Keeping Watch at the End of the World | ||||
| Fauxccasional Poems | ||||
| No Work Finished Here | ||||
| 2017 | All the Gold Hurts My Mouth | Winner | [26] | |
| Injun | Nominee | |||
| If I Were in a Cage I’d Reach out For You | ||||
| All of Us Reticent, Here, Together | ||||
| Saint Twin | ||||
| Pound @ Guantanamo | ||||
| Canticles I | ||||
| Little Dogs | ||||
| Every Night of Our Lives | ||||
| Silent Sister | ||||
| After All the Scissor Work Is Done | ||||
| Tight Wire | ||||
| Assdeep in Wonder | ||||
| Shiner | ||||
| Hard Work Cheering Up Sad Machines | ||||
| Metanoia | ||||
| Nineteen Fifty-Seven | ||||
| Touch Anywhere to Begin | ||||
| Meditatio Placentae | ||||
| 3 Summers | ||||
| Tell Them It Was Mozart | ||||
| Kids in Triage | ||||
| Yes or Nope | ||||
| Stampede and the Westness of West | ||||
| 2018 | Frequent, Small Loads of Laundry | Winner | [27] | |
| Children Shouldn’t Use Knives and Other Tales | Nominee | [28] | ||
| Everything We’ve Loved Comes Back to Find Us | ||||
| Bad Engine | ||||
| Museum of Kindness | ||||
| Dysphoria | ||||
| Dazzle Ships | ||||
| Excitement Tax | ||||
| Whatever, Iceberg | ||||
| 2019 | Sit How You Want | Winner | [29] | |
| bpNichol | Night on Prose Mountain | Nominee | ||
| What Your Hands Have Done | ||||
| Safe Words | ||||
| Mrs. Romanov | ||||
| Listen Before Transmit | ||||
| What Kind of Men Are You | ||||
| Anatomic | ||||
| City Poems | ||||
| Divided | ||||
| Quarrels | ||||
| We Like Feelings. We Are Serious | ||||
| Goodbye Horses | ||||
| Full Circle | ||||
| Nightlight for Children of Insomniacs | ||||
| Midday at the Super-Kamiokande | ||||
| 2020 | Fresh Pack of Smokes | Winner | [30] [31] | |
| Nominee | [32] | |||
| Winter's Cold Girls | ||||
| Renaissance Normcore | ||||
| NDN Coping Mechanisms | ||||
| Boom Time | ||||
| New and Collected Poems | ||||
| Our Latest in Folktales | ||||
| Bounce House | ||||
| Breakfast with a Heron | ||||
| This Is the Emergency Present | ||||
| Motel of the Opposable Thumbs | ||||
| 2021 | Pop | Winner | [33] | |
| Swivelmount | Nominee | |||
| We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite | ||||
| Anthesis | ||||
| Niagara & Government | ||||
| Roguelike | ||||
| I Know Something You Don't Know | ||||
| Mythical Man | ||||
| Cult Life | ||||
| it was never going to be okay | ||||
| I Am the Big Heart | ||||
| Word Problems | ||||
| 2022 | Why I Was Late | Winner | [34] | |
| Grey All Over | Nominee | [35] | ||
| J'Accuse...! | ||||
| Exhibitionist | ||||
| Tell the Birds Your Body Is Not A Gun | ||||
| Ink Earl | ||||
| Creeland | ||||
| Constrictor | ||||
| Searching for Eastman | ||||
| In Singing, He Composed a Song | ||||
| Love and Other Failed Religions | ||||
| Autowar | ||||
| 2023 | Flyway | Winner | ||
| Learned | Nominee | |||
| But the Sun, and the Ships, and the Fish, and the Waves | ||||
| Brat | ||||
| Vox Humana | ||||
| Pronounced/Workable | ||||
| The Day-Breakers | ||||
| The Affirmations | ||||
| Infinity Network | ||||
| Dream Of Me As Water | ||||
| Blood | ||||
| The End Is in the Middle | ||||
| First-Time Listener |
| Author(s) | Title | Result | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 19 Knives | Winner | ||
| How Did You Sleep? | Nominee | |||
| Buddha Stevens | ||||
| Love and the Bottle | ||||
| Oxygen | ||||
| Drought | ||||
| 2002 | Mount Appetite | Winner | ||
| Viking Brides | Nominee | |||
| Nits | ||||
| 2003 | Winner | |||
| Nominee | ||||
| My Own Devices | ||||
| Black Coffee Night | ||||
| 2004 | Fiction for Lovers | Winner | ||
| Broken Accidents | Nominee | |||
| Universal Recipients | ||||
| Way Up | ||||
| 2005 | Winner | |||
| Corner Pieces | Nominee | |||
| Let's Not Let a Little Thing Like the End of the World Come Between Us | ||||
| 2006 | Winner | |||
| Bloodknots | Nominee | |||
| 13 Ways of Listening to a Stranger | ||||
| Yesterday's People | ||||
| 2007 | Gargoyles | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| Whatever Happens | ||||
| Zero Gravity | ||||
| Indigenous Beasts | ||||
| Lanzmann and Other Stories | ||||
| Skids | ||||
| 2008 | Long After Fathers | Winner | ||
| Black Rabbit | Nominee | |||
| Long Story Short | ||||
| Seven Openings of the Head | ||||
| Bix's Trumpet | ||||
| Six Ways to Sunday | ||||
| Up on the Roof | ||||
| 2009 | Winner | |||
| Squishy | Nominee | |||
| Evidence | ||||
| My White Planet | ||||
| In the Quiet After Slaughter | ||||
| Elysium | ||||
| 2010 | Buying Cigarettes for the Dog | Winner | ||
| Sentimental Exorcisms | Nominee | |||
| What Boys Like | ||||
| Men of Salt, Men of Earth | ||||
| Fatted Calf Blues | ||||
| What We're Made Of | ||||
| 2011 | Ravenna Gets | Winner | ||
| Punishing Ugly Children | Nominee | |||
| I Still Don’t Even Know You | ||||
| Missed Her | ||||
| Ronald Reagan, My Father | ||||
| There Is No Other | ||||
| I’m a Registered Nurse Not a Whore | ||||
| Bats or Swallows | ||||
| 2012 | Pretty | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| Shag Carpet Action | ||||
| Stopping for Strangers | ||||
| Easy Living | ||||
| Distillery Songs | ||||
| 2013 | Every House Is Haunted | Winner | ||
| Tracie's Revenge & Other Stories | Nominee | |||
| Subtitles | ||||
| Escape and Other Stories | ||||
| How to Get Along with Women | ||||
| People Who Disappear | ||||
| Dibidalen | ||||
| Seen Reading | ||||
| 2014 | Auxiliary Skins | Winner | ||
| You Haven't Changed a Bit | Nominee | |||
| Exceptions & Deceptions | ||||
| They Never Told Me | ||||
| Red Girl Rat Boy | ||||
| After it Rains | ||||
| Dear Leaves I Miss You | ||||
| Keeping the Peace | ||||
| Someone Somewhere | ||||
| Islands of Decolonial Love | ||||
| All We Want is Everything | ||||
| Life Without Death | ||||
| 2015 | Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome | Winner | ||
| Boundary Problems | Nominee | |||
| How You Were Born | ||||
| I'm Not Scared of You or Anything | ||||
| We Don't Listen to Them | ||||
| How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun | ||||
| Gifts for the One Who Comes After | ||||
| Hello, Sweetheart | ||||
| Paradise & Elsewhere | ||||
| Some Extremely Boring Drives | ||||
| What I Want to Tell Goes Like This | ||||
| Nothing Looks Familiar | ||||
| Rolli | I Am Currently Working on a Novel | |||
| 2016 | Debris | Winner | ||
| Swing in the House | Nominee | |||
| Lessons from a Nude Man | ||||
| Bad Day for Ralphie | ||||
| Dance Moves of the Near Future | ||||
| Welcome to the Circus | ||||
| Last Words | ||||
| Knife Party at the Hotel Europa | ||||
| I Am What I Am Because You Are What You Are | ||||
| Moving Parts | ||||
| Meticulous, Sad and Lonely | ||||
| Confidence | ||||
| Pauls | ||||
| Night Moves | ||||
| 2017 | Bad Things Happen | Winner | ||
| Canadian Shield | Nominee | |||
| For All the Men and For All the Women I’ve Known | ||||
| Middle-Aged Boys & Girls | ||||
| Two Man Tent | ||||
| Waiting for the Cyclone | ||||
| As If | ||||
| Jettison | ||||
| Four-Letter Words | ||||
| Worldly Goods | ||||
| Swinging Through Dixie | ||||
| How to Pick Up a Maid in Statue Square | ||||
| Double Dutch | ||||
| Rising Abruptly | ||||
| Cretacea & Other Stories from the Badlands | ||||
| 2018 | Everything Is Awful and You're a Terrible Person | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| Smells Like Heaven | ||||
| and Steve Gagnon | I Never Talk About It | |||
| Barrelling Forward | ||||
| Has the World Ended Yet | ||||
| Annie Muktuk and Other Stories | ||||
| Peninsula Sinking | ||||
| You Are Not Needed Now | ||||
| Life on Mars | ||||
| Normalwhat’snormal | ||||
| Things Don’t Break | ||||
| This Accident of Being Lost | ||||
| 2019 | All the Lonely People | Winner | ||
| Nominee | ||||
| Hider/Seeker | ||||
| Tread & Other Stories | ||||
| You and Me, Belonging | ||||
| Difficult People | ||||
| 2020 | Send More Tourists...the Last Ones Were Delicious | Winner | ||
| Use Your Imagination! | Nominee | |||
| Lost Boys | ||||
| Dig | ||||
| Dead Flowers | ||||
| Swallows Playing Chicken | ||||
| Cracker Jacks for Misfits | ||||
| Meteorites | ||||
| Half-Sisters | ||||
| Moccasin Square Gardens | ||||
| 2021 | Stoop City | Winner | [36] | |
| Here the Dark | Nominee | |||
| Seeking Shade | ||||
| Swimmers in Winter | ||||
| Permanent Tourist | ||||
| Czech Techno | ||||
| Dominoes at the Crossroads | ||||
| Paradise Island and Other Galaxies | ||||
| Goth Girls of Banff | ||||
| 2022 | Winner | [37] | ||
| Erase and Rewind | Nominee | [38] | ||
| White Lie | ||||
| Just Like a Real Person | ||||
| Tainna | ||||
| Chemical Valley | ||||
| Breaking Right | ||||
| Urban Disturbances | ||||
| Handwringers | ||||
| We Want What We Want | ||||
| Radium Girl | ||||
| Sunday Drive to Gun Club Road | ||||
| Exit Strategies | ||||
| Wave Forms and Doom Scrolls | ||||
| Equipoise | ||||
| 2023 | God Isn't Here Today | Winner | ||
| Gaiety | Nominee | |||
| Bodies in Trouble | ||||
| Grin Reaping | ||||
| World Naked Bike Ride | ||||
| All the Shining People | ||||
| Rafael Has Pretty Eyes | ||||
| Shimmer | ||||
| I Am Claude François and You Are a Bathtub | ||||
| Ferry Back the Gifts | ||||
| Ezra's Ghost | ||||
| We Have Never Lived on Earth | ||||
| Cut Road | ||||
| Taobao |