Fifteen creators…sixteen publishers…one heckuva shortlist

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

October in Canada…falling leaves…even quicker falling temperatures…(a plot twist few may have predicted) playoff baseball…and literary awards.

The week of October 5 alone has seen the Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist, the winner of the Weston Nonfiction prize and the release of the Canada Council for the Arts Governor General’s Literary Awards finalists.

This year’s GG list is full of familiar names—and quite a few of our creator and publisher affiliates—fifteen and sixteen to be exact.

Creator affiliates nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award are:

Fiction: Helen Humphreys, The Evening Chorus; Guy Vanderhaeghe, Daddy Lenin and Other Stories.

Poetry: M. Travis Lane, Crossover; Patrick Lane, Washita; Robyn Sarah, My Shoes Are Killing Me.

Drama: Beth Graham, The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble; Bryden MacDonald, Odd Ducks.

Non-Fiction: Michael Harris, Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover.

Children’s Literature (Text): Dan Bar-el, Audrey (cow); Susin Nielsen, We Are All Made of Molecules; Caroline Pignet, The Gospel Truth.

Children’s Literature (Illustrated Books): Mélanie Watt, Bug in a Vacuum.

Translation (French to English): Rhonda Mullins, The Lake (translation of Malabourg by Perrine Leblanc); Susan Ouroiu and Christelle Morelli, Stolen Sisters: Two Men Who Forever Changes the Course of Canadian History (translation of Montcalm et Wolfe by Roch Carrier)

Publisher affiliates whose books were nominated include (deep breath and in no particular order): Groundwood Books, Pedlar Press, Penguin Random House Canada, Orca Book Publishers, Red Deer Press, Scholastic Canada, Playwrights Canada Press, Talonbooks, Nightwood Books, Harbour Publishing, Bibloasis, Douglas & McIntyre, Cormorant Books, House of Anansi, University of Toronto Press and Coach House Press.

The Governor General’s Literary Awards dole out prizes annually to English and French authors in seven categories, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, children’s writing as well as illustration, and translation. 

Winners in each category will be announced on October 28. Each winner will receive $25,000 with his or her publisher receiving $3,000. Runners-up in each category will get $1,000.