The Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award is an annual Canadian award, presented to the year's best song by an emerging singer-songwriter from Ontario in the genres of roots, traditional, folk and country music.[1] The award, created in memory of Canadian country singer Colleen Peterson, is sponsored by the Ontario Arts Council and the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals (OCFF), and is presented to a songwriter selected from 15 nominations put forward by the OCFF's Songs from the Heart songwriting competition,[2] excluding overall winners of the Galaxie Rising Stars Awards. The award was initially funded in part by royalties from the sale of Postcards from California, a posthumous album collecting some of Peterson's unreleased demo recordings.[3]
The award was presented for the first time in 2003.