Finalists for the Writers’ Trust Awards were announced today. The nominees include my picks: Rawi Hage, Kenneth J. Harvey, and Noah Richler.
The Writers’ Trust Awards are one of the largest awards moneywise that fiction and non-fiction writers can receive. There are 8 awards in total and they will be presented on Wednesday, March 7, in Toronto at a gala-gala do.
Total prize money is $123,000. Bang zoom.
The press release says:
“This year’s nominated titles chronicle the richness of life in Canada and around the globe. The novels are set amidst Tokyo’s vibrant nightlife, Lebanon’s civil war, and Ireland during the calamitous Potato Famine. There are memoirs that take readers back to a 1930s Mennonite farming community, to the destabilization and eventual collapse of Yugoslavia, and to 1949, when a fearless young woman travelled on horseback from Quebec to the West Coast.”
Book lovers have the chance to win a set of this year’s nominated titles by visiting http://www.writerstrust.com. Goodness knows where on the site you go to find out how to enter. It’s a poorly designed site with a lot of images and crazy navigation.
If you want to enter, let me save you to the trouble of finding the details: To enter, email your name and address to
More about the Awards
THE ROGERS WRITERS’ TRUST FICTION PRIZE ($15,000)
Peter Behrens (Brooklin, Maine) for The Law of Dreams, published by House of Anansi Press
Rawi Hage (Montreal) for DeNiro’s Game, published by House of Anansi Press ** I want Rawi to win. **
Catherine Hanrahan (Vancouver) for Lost Girls and Love Hotels, published by Viking Canada
Kenneth J. Harvey (Burnt Head, Newfoundland) for Inside, published by Random House Canada ** I want to read this book.**
Mary Lawson (Kingston-upon-Thames, United Kingdom) for The Other Side of the Bridge, published by Knopf Canada
THE NEREUS WRITERS’ TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE ($15,000)
Charlotte Gray (Ottawa) for Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell, published by HarperCollins Publishers: A Phyllis Bruce Book
Barbara Kingscote (Innisfail, Alberta) for Ride the Rising Wind: One Woman’s Journey Across Canada, published by NeWest Press
Noah Richler (Toronto) for This Is My Country, What’s Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada, published by McClelland & Stewart **Great event at the Vancouver Writers Festival. Go Noah. **
Dragan Todorovic (Coventry, United Kingdom) for The Book of Revenge: A Blues for Yugoslavia, published by Random House Canada
Rudy Wiebe (Edmonton) for Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest, published by Knopf Canada
THE WRITERS’ TRUST OF CANADA/McCLELLAND & STEWART JOURNEY PRIZE ($10,000)
(The Journey Prize recognizes the best short story or excerpt from a novel-in-progress by a new and developing writer.)
Heather Birrell (Toronto) for “BriannaSusannaAlana,” published in The New Quarterly
Lee Henderson (Vancouver) for “Conjugation,” published in Border Crossings
Martin West (Calgary) for “Cretacea,” published in PRISM international
