MacEwan University is proud to announce that the MacEwan Book of the Year for 2025/26 is The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard.

This is the author’s debut novel and was short listed for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and long listed for CBC’s Canada Reads 2025. A resident of Vancouver, Howard has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, where his work focused on the relationship between memory, emotion and literature.

“It is always a joy to announce the Book of the Year at MacEwan,” says Dr. Craig Monk, provost and vice-president, Academic. “And The Other Valley happens to be one of my favourite novels of the decade. It’s great to know that our students and faculty will spend time thinking about the twists and turns this story takes, and I am eager to hear about the conversations that I know will go on across campus.”

The MacEwan Book of the Year is an annual celebration of a work of Canadian literature that is taught in courses across multiple disciplines. The program also features several campus events, including classroom visits from the author, a public reading and a student contest.

“The MacEwan Book of the Year is an excellent way to promote this shared learning experience among students from different programs,” says Constanza Pacher, associate professor, Department of Design. “I’ve been using it in a project I created 12 years ago for my design classrooms and look forward to Scott Alexander Howard’s visit this year, hearing the rich discussions that The Other Valley will prompt, as well as the array of creative pieces students will design in response.”

The Book of the Year is chosen annually by a committee of faculty, staff and students, from suggestions brought forward by the MacEwan community.

About the novel

Sixteen-year-old Odile Ozanne is an awkward, quiet girl, vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decree who among the town’s residents may be escorted deep into the woods, cross the border’s barbed wire fence and make the arduous trek to descend into the next valley over. It’s the same valley, the same town. But to the east, the town is 20 years ahead in time. To the west, it’s 20 years behind. The only border crossings permitted by the Conseil are mourning tours: furtive viewings of the dead in towns where the dead are still alive.

When Odile recognizes two mourners she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her classmate Edme have crossed the border from the future to see their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present. Edme – who is brilliant and funny, and the only person to truly know Odile – is about to die. Sworn to secrecy by the Conseil so as not to disrupt the course of nature, Odile finds herself drawing closer to her doomed friend – imperilling her own future.

Masterful and original, The Other Valley is an affecting modern fable about the inevitable march of time and whether or not fate can be defied. Above all, it is about love and letting go, and the bonds, in both life and death, that never break. (Source: Simon & Schuster)

Congratulations to the 2024/25 student contest winners

Each year, students are invited to enter their creative work or critical essay about the Book of the Year into a student contest. The winners and honourable mentions for Deborah Willis’ novel, Girlfriend on Mars, are:

Creative Writing winner: 

• Teanna Schetter (Bachelor of Arts)

Critical Essay winner: 

• Katie Young (Bachelor of Arts)

Creative Project winners:

• Taylor Davies (Bachelor of Design)
• Kayla Sauth (Bachelor of Design)

Creative Project honourable mention:

• Perl Perez (Bachelor of Design)