
Congratulations to the winners of the 2023 Emerging Writer Prize!
With the Emerging Writer Prize, Rakuten Kobo endeavours to raise the profiles of debut authors by recognizing exceptional books written by first-time Canadian authors in three categories: Literary Fiction, Non-Fiction, and one of three types of genre fiction: Romance, Speculative Fiction, or Mystery.
On June 22, 2023, Rakuten Kobo announced the winners of its ninth annual Emerging Writer Prize, in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Speculative Fiction, adding three new names to a growing list of celebrated writers. We invite you to get to know the winners as well as the judges who selected them.
The winners react!
"Invisible Boy is an extraordinary coming of age story of being Black in a white world, living in the shadow of fundamentalist religion, surviving abuse, and deciphering the deep complexities of transracial adoption, all narrated in a singular and clear voice. Harrison Mooney captures his younger self exquisitely and it is clear he has been writing this book his entire life. Young Harrison has survival skills—he is sharply observant, funny, intelligent, and insightful—but his ultimate talent, shared with the most accomplished memoirists before him, is as a storyteller. There are no tidy conclusions to be had in life, but, as Mooney shows us, we can turn back and retread our route to explore how we came to be ourselves. I couldn't put this book down, and all I cared about was the boy at its centre and who he might become. Bravo to Harrison Mooney for writing this compelling, humorous, heartbreaking, and beautiful work."
Get to know Harrison Mooney
The 2023 Nonfiction Shortlist
"Tear is a bold, unflinching bildungsroman that moves, chimera-like, between the real and the imagined; among the confusions and traumas of youth; from the humane to the monstrous. And therein author Erica McKeen accomplishes the truly remarkable. While walking in the steps of such gothic icons as Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson, McKeen manages to forge her own path: avoiding the clichéd, the gratuitous, and the overwritten to create in Tear an inventive, affecting, modern work. With assured control of her craft and respect for both her readers and her genre forebearers, McKeen writes with an originality, sophistication, and expertise well beyond her years."
Get to know Erica McKeen
The 2023 Literary Fiction Shortlist
“The Petting Zoos delivers exactly what many readers look for in their speculative fiction: something bracingly new, but rooted in a fundamental sense of humanity. From a somewhat salacious concept, Covert creates a story of a world reawakening after disaster, an analysis of the nature of intimacy and love, of human connection. While Lily's is a personal, sexual odyssey, the novel is expansive, finding hope in dark corners, the soul-affirming power of fresh fruit, of nature, of touch. It's a most unusual and powerful work.”
Get to know K.S. Covert
The 2023 Speculative Fiction Shortlist
Get to know the judges who selected the winners

CS Richardson, Literary Fiction
CS Richardson’s first novel, The End of the Alphabet, was an international bestseller, published in fourteen countries and ten languages, and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Canada and the Caribbean). His second novel, The Emperor of Paris, was a national bestseller, named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the year, and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His newest novel, All the Colour in the World, tells the story of the restorative power of art in one man’s life, set against the sweep of the twentieth century—from Toronto in the ‘20s and ‘30s, through the killing fields of World War II, to 1960s Sicily. An award-winning book designer, CS Richardson is a multiple recipient of the Alcuin Award, Canada's highest honour for excellence in book design. He lives and writes in Toronto.

Robert J. Wiersema, Speculative Fiction
Robert J. Wiersema is the bestselling author of Before I Wake, Bedtime Story, and four other books. One of Canada’s foremost writers on books, his reviews appear regularly in the Toronto Star, Quill & Quire and other publications, and his Beyond the Bestseller column is featured biweekly on CBC Radio. Born and raised in the Fraser Valley, a couple of hours outside of Vancouver, Wiersema now lives in Victoria, BC. He is a professor of Creative Writing at Vancouver Island University and teaches his own private writing program.

Emily Urquhart, Nonfiction
Emily Urquhart is a journalist with a doctorate in folklore. Her award-winning longform Nonfiction has appeared in Guernica, Longreads and The Walrus among other publications. She is the author of Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family and the Mystery of our Hidden Genes, a Kobo First Book Prize nominee, as well as the memoir The Age of Creativity: Art, Memory, My Father and Me, which was listed as a top book of 2020 by CBC, NOW Magazine and Quill & Quire. She has taught creative writing at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo and is a Nonfiction editor with The New Quarterly. Her essay collection, Ordinary Wonder Tales, was published in Fall 2022.
Winners of past Emerging Writer Prizes
Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2022
Winners in Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, and Romance
Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2021
Winners in Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, and Mystery
Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2020
Winners in Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, and Speculative Fiction
Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2019
Winners in Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, and Romance
Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2018
Winners in Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, and Mystery
Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2017
Winners in Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, and Speculative Fiction
Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2016
Winners in Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, and Romance
Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize 2015
Winners in Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, and Mystery