Literary arts

What makes a person a hero? Guppie searches for the answer across an eye-opening family road trip.

A Summer of Dragonflies, a new book written by award-winning Edmonton author Natasha Deen, will be officially released on September 13, 2025. 

A Summer of Dragonflies is a humorous, heart-filled, family-oriented book about a cross-continent road trip. Terminally shy Guppie decides to use the trip as an opportunity to reinvent herself into a courageous hero like the ones in her favorite books. At first, Guppie tries to prove that she’s a hero through helping others and being bold, but she comes to understand that true courage means owning up to one’s mistakes and making amends.

A Summer of Dragonflies will be available for purchase at retailers on September 13, 2025. The book is intended for readers aged 9-12. 

Natasha Deen and is a best-selling and award-winning Guyanese-Canadian author, with books for children, young adults, and adults. She is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal. Her novel In the Key of Nira Ghani won the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award. Her works have also been nominated for the OLA Forest of Reading Red Maple Award, R. Ross Annett Award, Sunburst Award, Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence, and Alberta Readers’ Choice Award. Natasha teaches in the Creative Writing Program with the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies and lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

For more information about A Summer of Dragonflies and Natasha Deen, visit natashadeen.com. 

Calling all Writers: Open Submissions Now Live!

Do you have a story to share? Wild Skies Press is now seeking submissions for upcoming book titles. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry–we want to hear from you! Submit now to be considered for the 2026-2027 season, with early submissions highly encouraged. Don’t miss the chance to bring your work to life with a publisher that values your voice. 

Click here for more details about our submissions process and to learn about what makes Wild Skies Press the right publisher for you.

Announcing the third year of The Prairie Grindstone Prize — a $50,000 literary award that acknowledges a hardworking, engaged prairie writer. 

Nominations for The Prairie Grindstone Prize open on April 1 and will close on May 15 at midnight.

This annual prize, funded by an anonymous donor committee, alternates between the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. This year, the prize will be awarded to an Alberta writer. The Prairie Grindstone Prize recognizes prairie writers of fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction with a cash prize of $50,000 that will enable the writer to focus on their work for a year or more.

This is not a book prize. It is awarded in acknowledgement of an author’s body of work and their contribution to the public’s appreciation for and understanding of Western Canada’s landscape, people, history, and culture.

The writer must have been a resident of the province of Alberta for the past five years, have a minimum of four professionally published books, and be an active member of the local writing community.

Authors may not self nominate and recipients will be selected by a jury of peers.

Full nomination guidelines can be found here: www.prairiegrindstoneprize.ca/nominate Letters of nomination and inquiries can be sent to grindstoneprize@gmail.com 

For more information, please contact
Lisa Murphy Lamb, Jury Chair
Jun Lee, Marketing
e: grindstoneprize@gmail.com 

www.prairiegrindstoneprize.ca
IG: @prairiegrindstoneprize
FB: Prairie Grindstone Prize