Holyrood author Kathleen Winter has won Newfoundland and Labrador's richest literary prize, for the second win in her family's history.

Kathleen Winter (left) has won this year's Winterset Award. Other nominees were Paul Rowe and George Rose.
(Suzanne Woolridge/ CBC)

Winter won the 2007 Winterset Award for boYs, a collection of short stories that are thematically linked by the lives and thoughts of boys and men.

The announcement was made late Thursday afternoon at a ceremony at Government House in St. John's.

Winter, a veteran writer who lives in Holyrood and also writes a weekly column in the St. John's Telegram, wins $5,000 for the prize.

Winter is the sister of novelist Michael Winter, the first winner of the award. He won in 2000 for his autobiographical novel This All Happened.

Shortlisted nominees were Paul Rowe, for his novel The Silent Time, and George Rose, a well-known fisheries scientist who wrote Cod: An Ecological History of the North Atlantic Fisheries. Each won $1,000.

Winterset Award winners
2007	Kathleen Winter
2006	Kenneth Harvey
2005	Joan Clark
2004	Edward Riche
2003	Robert Mellin
2002	Joan Clark
2001	Michael Crummey
2000	Michael Winter

The jury picked the short list from about 36 contenders.

The Winterset Award was established in 2000 by newspaper columnist Richard Gwyn to honour the best writing in Newfoundland and Labrador. It commemorates his late wife, Sandra Fraser Gwyn, a St. John's-raised journalist and author who chronicled the arts community of her home province, and who died in 2000.

Winterset was the name of her family's since-demolished home on Winter Avenue in St. John's. The award is also affiliated with an annual literary festival held each summer in Eastport, on Newfoundland's northeast coast.

Last year's winner was Kenneth Harvey, who was honoured for his prison-based drama Inside. Other winners are Michael Crummey, Robert Mellin, Edward Riche and two-time winner Joan Clark.