Young Alberta Book Society

06/10/2026

Would your Edmonton school like to host writing workshops with Albertan authors next year for FREE? Apply by June 18! Link in comments.

06/02/2026

Thanks so much to authors Natasha Deen and Anna Priemaza for delivering our Young Writers Award Winners Circle Writing Workshops this weekend! We had terrific young authors joining us from across the province on Saturday and Sunday and we hope they had a lot of fun learning from some pros. If you'd like to read their winning stories, you can see them on our website!

05/06/2026

🏆 We are thrilled to announce and congratulate the winners of the Young Alberta Book Society's 2026 Young Writers Award! All of the winning stories are posted on our website.

All 18 winners are invited to our Winners' Circle virtual writing workshops with Natasha Deen (elementary) and Anna Priemaza (junior high).

Special thanks to our dedicated jurors and to every student who entered! 🎉

04/23/2026

04/01/2026

Congratulations to YABS member Katherine Koller for the nomination of her short story "Buckshot" for the Howard O'Hagan Award for Short Stories!

The Writers' Guild of Alberta is pleased to announce the finalists of the 2026 Alberta Literary Awards.

Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story Finalists

Sponsored by Alexandra Writers' Centre Society

"Walking Jello" — Barb Howard (The University of British Columbia Magazine)

"Buckshot" — Katherine Koller (The Fiddlehead)

"Redbird" — Stephanie Tamagi (PRISM International)

The winners will be announced at our Awards Gala Dinner on June 5, 2026. The Alberta Literary Awards were created by the WGA in 1982 to recognize excellence in writing by Alberta authors. Entries are judged by an independent jury recruited by the WGA.

We will also be hosting public readings to hear from our finalists — April 8, 2026 for the W.O. Mitchell Book Prize and April 18, 2026 for finalists in Calgary, and May 3, 2026 in Edmonton. The winners of the 9th Kemosa Scholarship will also have a chance to share their work.

Read about all the finalists here: https://writersguild.ca/2026-alberta-literary-awards-finalists/

03/24/2026

One week left for Alberta’s grade 4-9 students to enter their short stories in the YABS Young Writers Award! Check the link in the comments for all of the details 📝

(Formerly the Martyn Godfrey Young Writers Award)

03/22/2026

If your school would like to host an author, get in touch! YABS can help by covering the costs of travel to get a literary artist to your community!

02/26/2026

We're going to GETCA! On Thursday, the YABS booth will have author Marty Chan along with Jenn from the YABS office, and on Friday you'll find authors Nhung Tran-Davies and Robert Feagan! Come say at booth #505 and learn about our literary artist visits and other programs 📚

02/24/2026

Thank you so much to everyone who made time to take casino shifts for us over the last two days. This funding is an important resource to help us get literary artists into classrooms all over Alberta. We couldn't do it without the support of our volunteers and we are so grateful! 🥰

12/04/2025

The Rogers Birdies for Kids presented by AltaLink program raised $26,638,996 for 316 charities in Alberta this year! We are so grateful to be among them 🥰

All of the donations we receive through BFK are directed towards helping schools in need bring in professional literary artists to support teachers and students in their literacy journey.