The Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts is pleased to announce the Al and Eurithe Purdy BC Award for Excellence, an annual prize recognizing an outstanding book of fiction or non-fiction that is both authored and published in British Columbia. The prize is made possible through the generous support of Eurithe Purdy—in memory of her late husband, the great Canadian writer Al Purdy—and was created to honour his literary legacy and his ties to British Columbia. The $5,000 prize will be awarded to an author whose work shows literary merit, craft, originality, creativity and is rooted in BC’s cultural, historical or literary landscape. Starting in 2026, the award will be presented each year at the Festival of the Written Arts.
Please join us to celebrate the inaugural shortlist for the Al and Eurithe Purdy BC Award for Excellence. Three outstanding authors from British Columbia will be on hand to speak about and read from their shortlisted works, discuss the joys and challenges of publishing in BC, and share insights about the writing life and their literary craft.