Sarah Louise Bulter’s Rufous & Calliope - Finalist for the 2026 Banff Mountain Book Competition
Douglas & McIntyre is thrilled to announce that Rufous and Calliope by Sarah Louise Butler is a finalist for the Annual 2026 Banff Mountain Book Competition, Mountain Literature category.
In this geographic fiction of love and loss, a cartographer, experiencing memory deterioration, retraces a childhood summer with his siblings. His hike through the interior of BC, in search of a treehouse where he spent one memorable season on the run with his siblings, is a search for slivers of past relationships with family and the natural world. But neither the wilderness nor his memory is as it seems, as Sarah Butler masterfully weaves a mesmerizing story of survival, the bond between siblings, and the mysteries of the natural world. Check out the Book Trailer.
Previous Awards:
- 2026 BC and Yukon Book Prize’s Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, finalist
- 2026 Al & Eurithe Purdy BC Award for Excellence, finalist
AUTHOR STATEMENT: “Growing up, I was always hearing about how much I resembled my maternal grandmother, who was afflicted with an unusual, early-onset form of dementia. The comparison left me with the irrational notion that I’ll suffer the same fate, and this novel grapples with reimagining that outcome in a way that is less terrifying and more whimsical.
I was a rural kid born at the tail end of Generation X, and spent far more time with my siblings than with our busy hardworking parents. This novel plays out my childhood conviction that, if anything were to happen to our parents, my brothers and sister and me would all run away and live together in a treehouse in the woods. What could possibly go wrong?” – Sarah Louise Butler
Sarah Louise Butler is a novelist based in the West Kootenay region of the BC Interior. With a background in physical geography and environmental studies, her stories seek to portray natural landscapes and their non-human inhabitants as characters in their own right. Her debut novel, The Wild Heavens, was a 49th Shelf Book of the Year, and a favourite of book clubs and libraries across the country, including being chosen as a Vancouver Public Library Top 20 Favourite Books of 2020. It was recently translated and released in France. Her second novel, Rufous and Calliope, is a “geographical fiction” that features runaway children, treehouse hideaways, early-onset dementia and the persistence of hope amidst ecological grief. Butler was named a CBC Writer to Watch in 2020. Rufous & Calliope was a finalist for the 2026 BC and Yukon Book Prize’s Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the inaugural Al & Eurithe Purdy BC Award for Excellence. Follow her on Instagram: @sarahlouise.butler
The Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival celebrates mountain literature, film, and photography, bringing together filmmakers, writers, publishers, editors, photographers, athletes, adventurers, and readers. Featuring film screenings, guest speakers, readings, seminars and book signings, the Festival offers a wide spectrum of experiences for the mountain film and book-loving audience.
As a key program of Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival, the Book Competition is an internationally recognized literary competition that celebrates mountain literature in all its forms. $26,000 in cash is awarded annually with seven awards selected by an international jury of writers, adventurers and editors.
The category award winners will be announced in mid-October. The Awards will be granted and the Grand Prize announced on November 5, 2026.
For more Book Competition information and a list of all award categories and finalists