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We are delighted to share that our three time winner, Marcello Di Cintio has won the 2026 W.O. Mitchell Book Prize for his non-fiction book, Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers. Precarious examines the resilience and vulnerability of Canada's migrant labor force, offering an in-depth look at the workers who sustain the country's economy.

The City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize is awarded in honour of acclaimed Calgary writer W.O. Mitchell and recognizes literary achievement by Calgary authors. This marks the third time Di Cintio has won the W.O. Mitchell Prize, following his previous victories for Walls and Pay No Heed to the Rockets.

Di Cintio's books and magazine stories have won three Dave Greber Freelance Writers Awards, five Alberta literary Awards, a National Magazine award, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and three Alberta Magazine Awards. Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers (2021), was a Globe and Mail Book of the Year.

Di Cintio’s writing has also appeared in publications such as The International New York Times, The Walrus, Maclean's, Canadian Geographic and Afar. Di Cintio has served as a writer-in-residence at the Calgary Public Library, the University of Calgary and the Palestine Writing workshop.  DiCintio is a member of the Writer's Union of Canada, PEN Canada and the Writer's Guild of Alberta. He was the 2009-2010 Markin-Flanagan Canadian Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary.

Marcello Di Cintio

“ Let’s take a moment and thank the talented authors who provide us with worlds to disappear into, problems we can solve between pages, wonderful characters we adore and villains we love to despise.

— Jamie Davis

Winners Shirley Dunn Winners Shirley Dunn

Marcello DiCintio, 2024 Book Award Winner

Calgary writer Marcello Di Cintio is the author of five books, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades (winner of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the W. O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize), Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense (another Calgary Book Prize winner) and, most recently, Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers.

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Winners Rishi Savera Winners Rishi Savera

Vince Beiser, 2023 Book Award Winner

Vince Beiser is an award-winning journalist and author of “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization.” The book has been translated into five languages, was a finalist for a PEN America award and a California Book Award, and spawned a TED talk.

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Winners Rishi Savera Winners Rishi Savera

Carly Lewis, 2023 Magazine Winner

Carly Lewis has been a freelance journalist since 2012. Her work has appeared at The New York Times, Wired, the Globe and Mail, New York Magazine, Elle, The Walrus, Maisonneuve, The Atlantic, Hazlitt, The Guardian and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor.

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Winners Rishi Savera Winners Rishi Savera

Arno Kopecky, 2022 Magazine Award Winner

Arno has been a full time freelance journalist and author for over fifteen years. After graduating from the University of Victoria in 2001 with a double major in Creative Writing and Environmental Studies, he spent two years in Spain teaching English and studying Spanish.

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Winners Rishi Savera Winners Rishi Savera

Bonny Reichert, 2022 Book Award Winner

A National Magazine Award-winning journalist. Bonny began her career as an editor at Today’s Parent, Canadian’s largest parenting magazine, moving up in seniority before switching to Chatelaine with a then-readership of 3.1 million.

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Winners Shirley Dunn Winners Shirley Dunn

Josiah Neufeld, 2021 Book and 2014 Magazine Award

Josiah Neufeld grew up in Burkina Faso the son of evangelical Christian missionaries. Alarmed and awakened to the ecological crisis humanity faces, Josiah journeys on a quest for a spirituality that he hopes will transcend the religious binaries of his childhood faith and rise to meet the crisis of his time.

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Winners Shirley Dunn Winners Shirley Dunn

Roberta Staley, 2019 Book Award Winner

Roberta Staley is a Vancouver-based, independent magazine editor, writer, columnist, documentary filmmaker and author. Voice of Rebellion – How Mozhdah Jamalzadah Brought Hope to Afghanistan is her first book.

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Winners Shirley Dunn Winners Shirley Dunn

Geoff Dembicki, 2017 Book Award Winner

Geoff Dembicki is a freelance journalist and author based in Vancouver, BC. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from Carleton University in 2008 and started his writing career at The Tyee (thetyee.ca) covering the 2010 Winter Olympics.

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Winners Shirley Dunn Winners Shirley Dunn

Chris Benjamin, 2013 Book Award Winner

Chris Benjamin, a Halifax freelance writer, is the winner of the $5000.00 Dave Greber Freelance Writers Book Award. The winning chapter titled Creation Story is from his forthcoming book The Shubenacadie Indian Residential School.

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Winners Shirley Dunn Winners Shirley Dunn

Chris Cannon, 2011 Magazine Award Winner

Chris has worked as a writer and editor for magazines, ranging from Rolling Stone and the New Republic to the University of Chicago Magazine and the Journal of Visual Anthropology. He is the author of four books on music and travel, as well as a bestselling political satire.

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