Poverty rights activist Sheila Baxter (centre) celebrates with friends at the entrance to the Carnegie Centre as the first recipient of the Vancity Prize in 1992.
The Vancity Book Prize was co-supported by Vancity, the Government of British Columbia, Vancouver Public Library and B.C. BookWorld.
It was founded as a joint project by B.C. BookWorld, Vancity and the Vancouver Public Library in 1992.
The Vancity Book Prize was presented annually until 2005 to a B.C. author for best book in any genre pertaining to women’s issues.
It provided a $3000 award to the winner, with an additional $1000 from the provincial Ministry of Women’s Services, donated to a B.C. charitable organization of the winner’s choosing. The award is now defunct.
WINNERS:
1992 – Sheila Baxter, Under The Viaduct: Homeless in Beautiful B.C. (New Star Books)
1993 – Barbara Woodley, Portraits: Canadian Women in Focus (Doubleday)
1994 – Karlene Faith, Unruly Women: The Politics of Confinement and Resistance (Press Gang)
1995 – Denise Chong, The Concubine’s Children (Viking)
1996 – Karen X. Tulchinsky, In Her Nature (Women’s Press)
1997 – Gail Anderson-Dargatz, The Cure for Death by Lightning (Random House)
1998 – Bonnie Sherr Klein and Persimmon Blackbridge, Slow Dance A Story of Stroke, Love and Discovery (Knopf)
1999 – Kate Braid, Inward to the Bones (Polestar)
2000 – Rita Moir, Buffalo Jump: A Woman’s Travel (Coteau)
2001 – Rosemary Neering, Wild West Women (Whitecap)
2002 – Madeleine Thien, Simple Recipes (McClelland & Stewart)
2003 – Nancy Lee, Dead Girls (McClelland & Stewart)
2004 – Maggie de Vries, Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister (Penguin)
2005 – Debbie Palmer and Dave Perrin, Keep Sweet, Children of Polygamy (Dave’s Press)
