Novelist Lisa Moore is one of the finalists for this year's Winterset Award. (John Gushue/CBC)

Three novelists who hit the Canadian bestseller charts last year are in the running for Newfoundland and Labrador's key literary prize.

Michael Crummey, Jessica Grant and Lisa Moore are the three finalists for the 2010 Winterset Award, the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council announced.

The Winterset prize was founded by Toronto-based journalist Richard Gwyn to honour his late wife, Newfoundland-born journalist and writer Sandra Gwyn.

Crummey, who won the award in 2001 for his debut novel River Thieves, is a finalist for Galore (Doubleday Canada), the tale of a man who arrives in an isolated Newfoundland cove with a tale of having been swallowed by a whale. Galore was a finalist this year for the Governor-General's Literary Award for fiction.

Grant is nominated for Come, Thou Tortoise (Knopf), the story of a woman who relocates from the U.S. to St. John's, with much of the story about a tortoise named Winnifred.

Moore, a two-time finalist for the Giller prize, is nominated for February (Anansi), her second novel, which takes an intimate look at the aftermath of the 1982 sinking of the oil rig Ocean Ranger.

Previous winners of the Winterset prize are Joan Clarke, Michael Winter, Kathleen Winter and Kenneth J. Harvey.

The winner of the award, which carries a cheque for $5,000, will be announced March 25 at a ceremony in Government House in St. John's.