I’m delighted to announce that Oil People is the recipient of the 2025 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. The award was initiated by celebrated Nova Scotian author Thomas Head Raddall, who created the prize to give one writer “the gift of time and peace of mind.” The award is administered by the Raddall family, who reside on Nova Scotia’s South Shore, and to whom I am deeply grateful.

I’d like to congratulate the four other authors who were finalists for this year’s award: Mark Blagrave, Susie Taylor, Charlene Carr, and Carol Bruneau.

I am profoundly grateful to the jury, consisting of Sarah Butland, Dian Day, and William Ping. Here’s what the jury had to say about Oil People:

“Oil People is a story to savour, not devour. Huebert’s debut novel yields much like the earth drilled by one of its main characters, demanding time and attention, focus and forgiveness. It challenges the norm, delicately balancing the good and the bad within the oil industry, through a story that travels across generations, along family lines, through river and over land.Oil People will start conversations, change perspectives, challenge opinions, and it will do it all with mind-bendingingly poetic language. With a long view that includes the past, present and future, Oil People gives us an opportunity to begin to understand the impact of our ways.”

It’s one of the loveliest statements I’ve ever received about my work. Oil People comes out in paperback next month.