Today, the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association announced the shortlist for the 2018 Best Atlantic Published Book Award, which recognizes excellence in Atlantic Canadian publishing. Of the five finalists, two titles published by Goose Lane Editions are being recognized for their excellence:

• Powered by Love: A Grandmothers’ Movement to End AIDS in Africa by Joanna Henry, with Ilana Landsberg-Lewis and Alexis MacDonald
• SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft from Nunatsiavut by Heather Igloliorte.

“This is where the heart of feminism beats for me.”  
— Annie Lennox on Powered by Love

Powered by Love tells the story of extraordinary women holding families and communities together. When the AIDS pandemic in Africa reached its height in the early 2000s, millions of children were orphaned, and in the face of overwhelming loss, the grandmothers of Africa took action. Author Joanna Henry and photographer Alexis MacDonald visited eight African countries, interviewing and photographing hundreds of grandmothers who are reclaiming hope and resurrecting lives. As part of the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign, all royalties from the sale of this book go directly to African grandmothers and their grassroots organizations.

About the Authors: Joanna Henry is the director of program communications at the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, a labour and human rights lawyer, is co-founder and executive director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Alexis MacDonald is the director of external relations at the Stephen Lewis Foundation and a Toronto-based photographer.

“Spans generations and challenges many southern expectations of Inuit art.”  — The Coast on SakKijâjuk

SakKijâjuk — "to be visible" in the Nunatsiavut dialect of Inuktitut — is the first major publication on the art of the Labrador Inuit and accompanies a major touring exhibition organized by The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery of St. John's. The world's most southerly population of Inuit, the coastal people of Nunatsiavut have always lived both above and below the tree line and have had access to a diverse range of Arctic and Subarctic flora and fauna, from which they have produced a stunningly diverse range of work. Jointly published by Goose Lane Editions and the Rooms Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador, this breathtaking art volume is available in English, French, and Inuktitut.

About the Author: Heather Igloliorte (Inuit, Nunatsiavut Territory of Labrador) is an assistant professor and Research Chair in Indigenous Art History and Community Engagement at Concordia University in Montreal. Her research interests centre on Inuit and other Native North American visual and material culture, circumpolar art studies, performance and media art, the global exhibition of Indigenous arts and culture, and issues of colonization, sovereignty, resistance, and resilience.

The winner of the Best Atlantic Published Book Award will be announced at an Atlantic Books Awards ceremony held in Paul O’Regan Hall of the Halifax Central Library in Halifax, NS, on Thursday, May 10 at 7 PM. A cash prize of $3,000 will be awarded to the publisher of the winning book, and $1,000 will be awarded to the author, to be shared with co-author(s) and/or illustrator(s).

Other titles up for the award are Gerald Squires: An Artbook with writings from Stan Dragland and Michael Crummey (Pedlar Press), Policing Black Lives by Robyn Maynard (Fernwood Publishing), and Towards an Encyclopedia of Local Knowledge by Pam Hall (Breakwater Books).

To learn more about Powered by Love, click here.

To learn more about SakKijâjuk, click here.