The Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild congratulates Connie Gault on receiving the 2025 Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence
The Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild is proud to announce that the winner of the 2025 Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence is Connie Gault. The award honours a Saskatchewan writer who has written a substantial body of acclaimed literary work and has had a significant impact on writing in Saskatchewan. It carries a prize of $10,000 and a framed limited edition print of a painting by well-known Saskatchewan artist Dorothy Knowles.
Connie Gault is one of Saskatchewan’s, one of Canada’s, premiere writers of fiction. Born in Central Butte, she published her first short story in Grain in 1981. Her second novel, A Beauty, won the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award and was selected by the 2015 Giller Prize jury for its longlist. To date, she has published four plays, three novels and two short story collections. As the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award jury said of A Beauty, “Gault’s writing is so luminous and precise and her world so well-crafted it draws the reader in completely.” The same could be said of all her books. A fourth novel, A Study in Red, will appear from Thistledown Books in 2026.
Between her first publication in Grain and her most recent novel, The Rasmussen Papers, Connie Gault has won or been shortlisted for numerous prizes, the Saskatchewan Writers Guild Long Manuscript Award; University of Nebraska, Readers’ Choice Award; City of Regina Writing Award; Toronto Book Award; Commonwealth Prize for the Best Book, Canada and the Caribbean among other prizes and nominations. Her fiction has been anthologized in the Oxford Book of Stories by Canadian Women, Best Canadian Stories, Turn of the Story: Canadian Stories for the Millenium and Donde Es Aqui: Anthology of Canadian Stories (Mexico). All this attention shows she is highly regarded both in Canada and internationally.
Connie Gault also is one of Saskatchewan’s most celebrated playwrights with four published plays produced across Canada. Her plays have also been broadcast on CBC Radio and BBC World Service. As a mentor, Gault has been involved in the SWG Mentorship Program and taught and edited at Sage Hill and the Banff Centre. She was fiction editor at Grain magazine 1995-98.
Ultimately, the jury was impressed with the breadth and scope of Connie Gault’s career, her ability to move with equal strength from genre to genre, and with her commitment to the vocation of writing. In a recent interview, she was asked what was the most surprising thing about being a writer. “It’s so addictive,” she replied. “Once you get hooked, you can’t imagine life without writing. It’s why writers don’t retire, they keep on writing, shifting genres or approaches, maybe, but writing.”
The video announcing Connie Gault as the 2025 Kloppenburg Award winner is available here: https://youtu.be/4IEd9Vqq6Gk
For additional Award information, including a full list of previous winners, please visit https://skwriter.com/programs-and-services/awards/the-cheryl-and-henry-kloppenburg-award-for-literary-excellence.
