I’m thrilled to have my debut novel, Dreaming Home, shortlisted for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Literary Fiction. The shortlisting is quite an honour in itself, as the other titles in this category have achieved high acclaim.

Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese won both the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award and the Writers Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2+ Emerging Writers and was long listed for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction.

In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas won the 2023 Writers' Trust Atwood Gibson Prize and was shortlisted for both the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award.

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns was a 2024 Canada Reads selection, a CBC Books Best Book of the Year, an ALA Alex Award Winner and was shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award.

Denison Avenue by Christina Wong, with illustrations by Daniel Innes, was also a 2024 Canada Reads selection, as well as a finalist for the 2024 ALA Carnegie Medals for Excellence.

Jamaluddin Aram, author of Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on Wednesday, was a finalist for the 2020 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.

The Kobo Emerging Writer Prize is a Canadian literary award presented since 2015 by online e-book and audiobook retailer and eReader manufacturer Rakuten Kobo. The award recognizes exceptional debut books in three categories: Literary Fiction, Nonfiction, and one of three rotating types of genre fiction: Romance, Speculative Fiction, or Mystery. The 2024 genre is Mystery.

With the goal of raising the profiles of debut authors, the winners are provided with support in marketing their books, as well as awarded a $10,000 prize.