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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

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

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

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

graeme smith: hilary weston prize winner

October 24, 2013 //

Photographer: Sonia Recchia / Pimentel Photo

More than 200 members of the literary, arts and philanthropic communities gathered at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Monday, October 21, to fete the nominees and discover the winner of the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. The one-hour ceremony included dramatic performances from the nominated books, a slide show of the books in locations across Canada, and original art created on the spot in response to  excerpts from the books. The event culminated, of course, in the announcement of the winner, and a “rock star party.”

Graeme Smith took the prize for his book The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan

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

  • Thomas King for The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America
  • J.B. MacKinnon for Our Once and Future World: Nature As it Was, As it Is, As it Could Be
  • Andrew Steinmetz for This Great Escape: The Case of Michael Paryla
  • Priscila Uppal for Projection: Encounters With My Runaway Mother

Here’s some of the coverage:

 

 

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Categories Literary Awards, Publicity

the luminaries

October 19, 2013 //

image: The Luminaries

 

On Tuesday night, Canadian-born Kiwi Eleanor Catton became the youngest author ever to win the Man Booker Prize. She won for The Luminaries, which, at 830-odd pages, is also the longest book ever to have won, and will forever be the last book to have won before the prize changed its entry rules to include writers beyond the Commonwealth and Ireland.

But should you read it?

I did – more quickly than I’d suggest you do. Here’s my conversation with Brent Bambury on CBC Day 6.

 

 

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Categories Broadcast, Buzz Books, Literary Awards, Reviews

and the fiction nominees are

October 3, 2013 //

image: WT Fiction Shortlist 2013

 

On Monday, September 30, we announced the nominees for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize at a press conference at Ben McNally Books in downtown Toronto. Prize juror and 2010 prize winner Miranda Hill announced the $10,000 Journey Prize shortlist. Prize juror Alison Pick and Jan Innes, vice president, government relations, Rogers Communications, announced the $25,000 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize shortlist. The winners will be announced in Toronto on November 20.

The Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize nominees are:

  • Krista Bridge for The Eliot Girls
  • Lynn Coady for Hellgoing
  • Cary Fagan for A Bird’s Eye
  • Colin McAdam for A Beautiful Truth
  • Lisa Moore for Caught

The Journey Prize nominees are:

  • Doretta Lau for her story “How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?”
  • Eliza Robertson for her story “My Sister Sang”
  • Naben Ruthnum for his story “Cinema Rex”

Here’s some of the coverage:

 

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Categories Literary Awards, Publicity

nonfiction nominees, aisle three

September 19, 2013 //

Hon. Hilary M. Weston welcomes guests to the announcement of the 2013 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction shortlist

 

On Wednesday, September 18 the shortlist for the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction was announced. For the second year, books nominated for the prize will be promoted at Loblaws stores across Canada, and so, also for the second year, we announced the finalists at a swish event at Loblaws at Maple Leaf Gardens. While the cutting of the giant Parmesan (really, it’s big) did draw its own crowd, the real stars of the morning were the five nominees.

They are:

The winner will be announced on Monday, October 21.

Here’s some of the coverage from the shortlist announcement:

CBC Live (video)
CBC Books
Globe and Mail
National Post
Quill and Quire
Toronto Star

 

 

 

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Categories Literary Awards, Publicity

dedicated to difference

June 22, 2013 //

 

C.E. Gatchalian accepts the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT Emerging Writers. Photo by Katrina Afonso.

Vancouver playwright C.E. Gatchalian was named the recipient of this year’s Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT Emerging Writers on June 26.  The prize is administered by the Writers’ Trust of Canada.

In his acceptance speech he dedicated the award to “difference.” “As artists and as people who identify as Queer,” he said, “we must resist sameness whenever and wherever possible.”

Read the story in the National Post

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