2024 HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction Winner

Originally from PEI, Emily Cann lives and writes as a white settler in Halifax, NS in Mi’kma’ki. She holds an MS in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University, an MA in English from the University of Guelph, and an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. She is currently pursuing a SSHRC- and Killam-funded PhD in English at Dalhousie. Her research focuses on recovery narratives in contemporary North American novels and memoirs.

As the winner, Cann is represented by Paige Sisley at CookeMcDermid Literary Management, and BRANCHES has been acquired by Julia McDowell, to be published byHarperCollinsPublishersLtd in spring 2026.

“I am so abundantly grateful to have been selected for this year’s prize,” said Cann. “This is a very meaningful project to me and I’m so thankful to UBC, CookeMcDermid, and HarperCollins for enabling me to bring it out into the world.”

“It is not every day that an author, especially a new author, has such a strong understanding of the world they are building in their writing,” says McDowell, Cann’s editor at HarperCollinsPublishersLtd. “BRANCHES is fresh, thought-provoking and smart. We are excited about continuing to invest in and build Emily’s career as an author.”