Two books published by ISER Books have made the longlist for the 2019 Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards.

The Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador has included We All Expected to Die: Spanish Influenza in Labrador, 1918–1919 by Anne Budgell and Mistress of the Blue Castle: The Writing Life of Phebe Florence Miller by Vicki Hallett in its excellence in non-fiction category for the provincial awards.

A shortlist of three books will be announced on Monday, Nov. 4, alongside the shortlisted titles for the E.J. Pratt Poetry Award at City Hall in St. John’s. The winning authors will receive a cash prize of $1,000; finalists will each receive $500.

We All Expected to Die

In We All Expected to Die: Spanish Influenza in Labrador, 1918–1919, Anne Budgell reconstructs the horrific impact of the influenza pandemic in hard-hit Labrador locations, such as the Inuit villages of Okak and Hebron where the mortality rate was 71 per cent.

Using the recollections of survivors, diaries kept at the time, Hudson’s Bay Company journals, newspaper reports and government documents, this powerful and uncompromising book tells the story of how the flu travelled to Labrador and wreaked havoc there.

Mistress of the Blue Castle

Mistress of the Blue Castle: The Writing Life of Phebe Florence Miller is an evocative exploration of the ways that identity and place are created together through the diaries, journals, poems and letters that this mercurial artist left behind.

Phebe Florence Miller was a poet and postmistress who lived in Topsail, N.L., from 1889–1979.

Vicki Hallett brings Miller’s life and contributions to Newfoundland and Labrador culture back into focus through the lens of her most personal writing.

“ISER Books is proud to have two titles on the longlist for the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards, highlighting a period of growth and resurgence of Memorial’s scholarly publisher,” said Randy Drover, ISER Books. “We’re sending a big congratulations to authors Anne Budgell and Vicki Hallett for this well-deserved recognition.”

ISER Books publishes scholarly work about the society, economy, and culture of the North Atlantic region and operates in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Memorial University.