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our thing in the spring

May 28, 2015 //

Alessandra Naccarato, winner of the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Photo credit Katrina Afonso.

 

On a hot and humid May evening in Toronto, the Writers’ Trust of Canada handed out its “thing in the spring,” the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. The winner was  Alessandra Naccarato for her poetry collection “Re-Origin of Species.”

The Bronwen Wallace Award recognizes emerging writers under 35 who have yet to publish in book form. Past winners include many then-unknown but now-familiar names, such as Michael Crummey, Alissa York, Alison Pick and Jeramy Dodds.

Host Tanis Rideout (another past winner) set the perfect tone: fun, celebratory, reverential. The crowd schmoozed to classical renditions of Top 40 songs (we were in the Royal Conservatory of Music, after all) in a stunning all-glass room with views of Philosopher’s Walk and the Royal Ontario Museum. The atmosphere was fun, lively, and distinctly emerge-from-hibernationy. This was, said Tanis “our thing in the spring.”

Alessandra Naccarato won $5,000. Her fellow nominees each won $1,000. They were: Irfan Ali for “Who I Think About When I Think About You,” and Chuqiao Yang for “Roads Home.”

Find out more about the prize and this year’s nominees here.

Read stories from CBC Books, the Toronto Star and Quill and Quire here, here and here.

And check out a Facebook photo gallery from the event courtesy of the Writers’ Trust here.

Here are the three nominees chatting with me and (via the magic of Periscope) the world on the pre-ceremony “red-carpet.”

Chatting to award finalists Irfan Ali, Alessandro Naccarato and Chuqiao Yang before the ceremony. Photo credit Katrina Afonso.

 

 

 

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Categories Events, Host / Interviewer, Industry, Literary Awards, Publicity

the familiar, volume 1

May 19, 2015 //

 

Mark Z. Danielewski has both dazzled and confounded readers with his high-concept novels that utilize font, colour, footnotes within footnotes, and sometimes turning the book upside down every few pages to tell a story.

His latest book, The Familiar: One Rainy Day in May, is presented as Volume 1 of a projected 27 volume series, of which new volumes (or “episodes”) will be released every 6 months. It’s unlike any book you’ve picked up before. But should you read it?

My review on CBC Day 6 >> listen here.

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Categories Broadcast, Buzz Books, Reviews

should i gift it?

December 20, 2014 //

For the last-minute Christmas shoppers among you, here’s my annual Holiday Gift Guide for CBC Day 6.

Here’s the audio >> listen.

For foodies:

  • How to Cook Everything Fast by Mark Bittman
  • The Cookbook Book from Phaidon

For fiction lovers:

  • Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
  • The Neapolitan Series by Elena Ferrante

For non-fiction nuts:

  • Flashboys by Michael Lewis

Stocking stuffer:

  • Remembrance by Alistair MacLeod

 

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Categories Broadcast, Buzz Books, Reviews

winning words at the 2014 writers’ trust awards

November 19, 2014 //

Award winners (l to r) Joan Thomas, Cary Fagan, Miriam Toews, Ken Babstock, Susan Musgrave, Tyler Keevil

On November 4, 2014, Canada’s literary crowd got together for the night of warm fuzzy feelings that is the annual Writers’ Trust Awards.  Held at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, the event was hosted by Globe & Mail Arts Editor Jared Bland, who shared literary anecdotes between emotional speeches from the winners. In total, $139,000 in prize money was awarded to Canadian writers. The night’s winners were:

  • Miriam Toews for All My Puny Sorrows, which won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize
  • Tyler Keevil for “Sealskin,” which won the Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize
  • Ken Babstock, who won the inaugural Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize
  • Joan Thomas, who won the Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award
  • Susan Musgrave, who won the Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life
  • Cary Fagan, who won the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People.

Here’s some of the media coverage:

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Categories Literary Awards, Publicity

hilary weston prize winner

October 19, 2014 //

The books nominated for the 2014 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. cr. Tom Sandler

 

On October 14, at a salon-style gathering of more than 200 guests, the 2014 fall literary season shifted into high gear with the awarding of the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. The winner was Naomi Klein for her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. the Climate.

The other nominees, who each took home $5,000, were:

  • Susan Delacourt for Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them
  • Charles Montgomery for Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
  • Paula Todd for Extreme Mean: Trolls, Bullies, and Predators Online
  • Kathleen Winter for Boundless: Tracing Land and Dream in a New Northwest Passage

Here’s a round-up of what the media said:

 

 

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Categories Literary Awards, Publicity

writers’ trust announces fiction finalists

October 4, 2014 //

 

The Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize now have shortlists! And this is my fifth year at the PR end of both prizes, which also deserves an exclamation mark >> !

As usual, the nominees were announced at a buzzing-yet-cozy event at Ben McNally Books in downtown Toronto. There were publishers, there was media, there were giant book covers printed on foam-core backing. There was coffee. There was also a vat of jam that was perhaps a joke on the part of the caterers…. Either way, it got good Twitter from the assembled coffee-and-pastry hungry crowd.

The Fiction Prize nominees were announced by Jan Innes, vice president, government affairs, Rogers Communications, and Helen Humphreys, a past winner of the prize and one of this year’s jurors.

The nominees are:

  • André Alexis for Pastoral, published by Coach House Books
  • Steven Galloway for The Confabulist, published by Knopf Canada
  • K.D. Miller for All Saints, published by Biblioasis
  • Carrie Snyder for Girl Runner, published by House of Anansi
  • Miriam Toews for All My Puny Sorrows, published by Knopf Canada

The Journey Prize nominees were announced by jurors Craig Davidson and Steven W. Beattie.

Those nominees are:

  • Tyler Keevil for “Sealskin”
  • Lori McNulty for “Monsoon Season”
  • Clea Young for “Juvenile”

Here’s a sampling of what people said about the announcement:

The winners will be announced at the Writers’ Trust Awards on November 4.

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Categories Literary Awards, Publicity

a new (book) shopping list

September 17, 2014 //

Prize juror Merrily Weisbord announces a nominee for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction

A brand new book shopping list was announced this morning at Loblaws at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto: the 2014 shortlist for the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

The nominees were announced at a press conference attended by 75 guests representing the publishing community, arts and entertainment media, and our prize partners. Guests were welcomed by the Hon. Hilary M. Weston, and the five nominees were announced by jurors Charles Foran, Priscila Uppal, Merrily Weisbord and Peter Mansbridge.

The nominees are:

  • Susan Delacourt for Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them
  • Naomi Klein for This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs the Climate
  • Charles Montgomery for Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
  • Paula Todd for Extreme Mean: Trolls, Bullies and Predators Online
  • Kathleen Winter for Boundless: Tracing Land and Dream in a New Northwest Passage

Media coverage from the event included:

Information about the nominees and their books is available at writerstrust.com

 

 

 

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Categories Literary Awards, Publicity

partying politics

April 7, 2014 //

Covers of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize nominated books hang above the crowd at the Politics & the Pen Gala

At a black-tie dinner at Ottawa’s Chateau Laurier last week, Maclean’s political editor Paul Wells was named the popular winner (with many friends and colleagues among the 500 guests) of the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for his book The Longer I’m Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada, 2006 –. You can read his acceptance speech on Macleans.ca, here.

The award is presented at the Politics & the Pen Gala, which raises in excess of $300,000 annually for the Writers’ Trust of Canada.

This year’s event was hosted (to a standing ovation after their opening skit) by Hon. Lisa Raitt, Minister of Transport, and Ms. Megan Leslie, Member of Parliament for Halifax and member of the Official Opposition. Next to the announcement of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize winner, the co-hosts’ duet of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” with specially written lyrics about being a woman on Parliament Hill, was the highlight of the evening.

Paul Wells’ fellow nominees for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize were: Margaret MacMillan for The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, Charles Montgomery for Happy City: Transforming Our Lives through Urban Design, Donald J. Savoie for Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher: How Government Decides and Why, and Graeme Smith for The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan, which won the 2013 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

Media coverage for the five Shaughnessy Cohen Prize nominees included an interview series in the Globe & Mail (here) and an interview with juror Doug Saunders on CBC Radio One’s Ottawa drive-home show, All in a Day, as the Politics & the Pen gala was getting underway.

CTV Ottawa came to the cocktail reception (video clip here), and Paul Wells was dragged out of bed dark and early the morning after his win to appear on CTV Ottawa’s breakfast show, CTV Morning Live (video clip here).

If you’d like to see some photos from the night, you’re in luck, because there are LOTS.

Here’s a selection:

 

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Categories Events, Fundraisers, Literary Awards, Publicity

shovel ready

February 17, 2014 //

image: shovel ready

 

A writer publishes his debut novel. The writer has a toe hold in the literary establishment on both sides of the Canada/US border. The novel has a toe hold on both sides of the noir/sci-fi genre border. The setting of the novel is almost borderless; near-future New York functioning as everyplace and no place, a Gotham or Metropolis, a metaphor for where society has gone wrong. The protagonist is an assassin with a code: one foot on either side of the moral fence.

The review is not like the novel. The review has to pick a single side.

Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh. Should you read it?

Listen to the segment on CBC Day 6.

 

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Categories Broadcast, Buzz Books, Reviews

shaughnessy cohen prize shortlist

February 4, 2014 //

image: shaughnessy cohen prize shortlist

 

The shortlist for the 2013 Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing was announced this morning.

The nominees are:

  • Margaret MacMillan for The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
  • Charles Montgomery for Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
  • Donald J. Savoie for Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher? How Government Decides and Why
  • Graeme Smith for The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan
  • Paul Wells for The Longer I’m Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada, 2006 —

Media coverage for the shortlist included:

Canadian Press

Globe and Mail

National Post

Quill & Quire

Toronto Star

The winner will be announced at the Politics & the Pen Gala in Ottawa on April 2.

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Categories Fundraisers, Literary Awards, Publicity
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