Winnipeg writer Martha Brooks has won the Vicky Metcalf Award. The $15,000 national literary award honours Martha's entire body of work. The award was presented on Tuesday night in Toronto.

Martha Brooks is a young adult author whose works transcend the genre. She has won the Governor General Award, the Mr.Christie Book Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award, the McNally Robinson Book of the Year for Young People Award, and many other honours. She is also a jazz singer and lyricist.

Martha's most recent novel, Mistik Lake, is an inter-generational tale of love and loss set in a small Manitoba resort town with a strong Icelandic heritage. It is the story of Odella, a young girl trying to deal with the divorce of her parents, and her mother's death. It is the story of her mother, Sally, and also of Gloria, Odella's great aunt, a wise woman who holds the family together.

Congratulations, Martha!