Awarded for the first time in 1991, the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction has recognized compelling books ranging from memoirs to biographies to a personal account of Canadians at War. Many of the recipients have gone on to be highly renowned and well-recognized members of Canada's impressive literary scene.

• 2010: John Leigh Walters - A Very Capable Life: The Autobiography of Zarah Petri
• 2009: Russell Wangersky – Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself
• 2008: Bruce Serafin – Stardust
  
• 2007: Linden MacIntyre – Causeway: A Passage from Innocence
  
• 2006: Francis Chalifour – After
• 2005: Anne Coleman – I'll Tell you a Secret
• 2004: Andrea Curtis – Into the Blue
• 2003: Alison Watt – The Last Island
• 2002: Tom Allen – Rolling Home 
• 2001: Taras Grescoe – Sacré Blues
• 2000: Wayson Choy – Paper Shadows
• 1999: Michael Poole – Romancing Mary Jane
• 1998: Charlotte Gray – Mrs. King
• 1997: Anne Mullens – Timely Death
• 1996: George G. Blackburn – The Guns of Normandy
• 1995: Denise Chong – The Concubine's Children
• 1994: Linda Johns – Sharing a Robin's Life
• 1993: Liza Potvin – White Lies (For my Mother)
• 1993: Elizabeth Hay – The Only Snow in Havana
• 1992: Marie Wadden – Nitassinan
• 1991: Susan Mayse – Ginger