Author and Globe and Mail reporter Ian Brown is the winner of this year’s British Columbia National Book Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, a prize worth $40,000, The Canadian Press reports.

Brown won for his book The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son, which examines life with the author’s son Walker, who was born with a rare genetic disorder. The book grew out of a series in The Globe and Mail.

Brown told the Globe:

“A huge amount of money, given by B.C. but on a national basis to writers from anywhere in Canada, with no restriction on subject or style – that’s a big shot in the arm for creative non-fiction.”

The other finalists were Karen Connelly for Burmese Lessons: A Love Story, Eric Siblin for The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece and Kenneth Whyte for The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst.