Latest news with #GovernorGeneral'sLiteraryAward
Calgary Herald
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Add these 10 B.C. book titles to your summer reading list
Article content Article content Written by a former Hollywood assistant and screenwriter, this romp of a novel is set in 1997 and follows a young assistant with big dreams, who moves from Vancouver to Los Angeles to work for an A-list director. Once there, Charity Trickett's dream of climbing the ladder to screenwriting and producing success is stymied at every turn by a backstabbing co-worker and a big, potentially billion-dollar mistake. Article content Article content If you're a and you're looking to stay in the province for your summer vacation, chances are, you're thinking about the Okanagan Valley. If you do decide to head for the sun, pick up a copy of this informative, entertaining and very packable book from seasoned travel writer Arnott. Article content Article content Article content The Kelowna author of the Governor General's Literary Award finalist All the Quiet Places is back with the novel Bones of a Giant. Set in 1968 on the Okanagan Indian Reserve, where Isaac was born, the novel dives into a teenager's struggle with grief and becoming a man in a world that does him no favours. Article content Article content This cosy mystery is set in the fictional northern Oregon Coast town of Twilight Cove as it readies to celebrate an 18th-century pirate and all-around bad guy Dead Eye Dawson. Just before the day of celebration, pirate enthusiast and celebration committee member Jasper Hogan is found in a pool of blood in his study by fellow committee member Georgie Johansen. Georgie, who works at an animal sanctuary, goes into sleuth mode and sets out to find the killer. This is a perfect beach bag addition that comes with all cosy mystery signposts: murder, intrigue, love and two dogs with supernatural powers. OK, maybe that last thing is unique. Article content Article content Who doesn't like a good adventure story, especially a true one? Hughes — whose previous book Capturing the Summit: Hamilton Mack Laing and the Mount Logan Expedition would also make a great addition to your summer reading list — is back. This time Hughes looks at pioneering climbers who tried, in the early 1930s, to conquer Mystery Mountain, a.k.a. Mount Waddington. The Final Spire is a chronicle of fascinating history and good old-fashioned chutzpah. Article content Article content If the west coast of Vancouver Island is on your summer travel list, this book would be a perfect companion. Martin, whose family has spent four generations in the area, has done decades of research and interviews for this comprehensive history of Ucluelet, complete with stories about settlement and dispossession, tragedies and triumphs, First Nations history and contemporary culture. And yes, shipwrecks and sea serpents too.
Winnipeg Free Press
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Book club to survey Sinclair's essays
The Free Press Book Club and McNally Robinson Booksellers are pleased to welcome Winnipeg author (and Free Press columnist) Niigaan Sinclair for the next virtual meeting on Tuesday, June 24 at 7 p.m. to read from and discuss his award-winning essay collection Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre. Published in May 2024 by McClelland & Stewart, Wînipêk compiles a year's worth of Sinclair's Free Press columns as well as other writing about how our perception of Winnipeg, and the ways in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens co-exist and survive, is a window into larger questions about colonialism and reconciliation nationwide. Wînipêk was a national bestseller, landing on a number of year-end lists of best books. Sinclair's debut collection also netted him the Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction, news he was able to share with his father, Murray Sinclair, before he passed in November 2024. Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press files Niigaan Sinclair In his review of Wînipêk for the Free Press, Matt Henderson says Sinclair 'takes the reader on a journey through the land, water and seasons, the underbelly and magnificence that is Winnipeg,' adding 'Sinclair identifies the overt racism as well as the legislative, calculated mindsets that have intentionally set out to destroy Indigenous Peoples and culture.' Yet Sinclair retains hope for the future of the city; 'Wînipêk is a portal into our violent past, our precarious present and the promise of tomorrow. It should be mandatory reading for all Canadians,' Henderson writes. Sinclair will join fellow Free Press columnist Jen Zoratti, McNally Robinson Booksellers co-owner Chris Hall and Free Press audience engagement manager Erin Lebar to read from Wînipêk, discuss the book and field questions from viewers and readers. Copies of Wînipêk are available to purchase at McNally Robinson Booksellers; there's no cost to join the book club or virtual discussion. Video of the meeting will be available for replay on the Free Press YouTube channel following the event. For more information and to register, visit Wînipêk
Calgary Herald
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
The newest Tory senator is a Trudeau appointee. What to know about about David Adams Richards
Article content He's married to Peggy McIntyre, with whom he has two sons, John Thomas and Anton Richards. Article content While his first published work after studying literature and philosophy at St. Thomas University in the early 1970s was a small book of poems, Richards became an acclaimed Canadian novelist with 16 titles on his resume, along with six non-fiction books and two collections of short stories. Article content His writings have been translated into 12 languages and are part of the curriculum of Canadian and U.S. universities, according to the Senate of Canada. Article content In a style said to be influenced by the likes of Leo Tolstoy and compared to William Blake, his fiction work is mostly set in the Miramichi Valley where he grew up and the characters are inspired by the lives and experiences of its poor and working-class people. Article content Article content Article content Richards has been a writer-in-residence at multiple universities and colleges across Canada, three of which have awarded him honorary doctorates — the University of New Brunswick (1995), Mount Allison University in Sackville (2008), and St. Thomas University in Fredericton (1990). He received the same honour from the Atlantic School of Theology in 2010. Article content In 1998, he became one of just three Canadian writers to win a Governor General's Literary Award in both fiction and non-fiction for Nights Below Station Street (1988) and Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi (1998). Writers Laura G. Salverson and Hugh MacLennan are the others. Meanwhile, his 1993 fiction novel For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down and 2007's The Lost Highway were also nominated for the government honour. Article content Article content In 2000, his Mercy Among the Children was a co-winner of the Giller Prize along with Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje, the only time two recipients have shared the honour in its 31-year history. Lost Highway and The Friends of Meager Fortune (2006) were both longlisted for the Giller. Article content Richards has also been awarded two Gemini Awards for scriptwriting (Small Gifts and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down), the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Canadian Authors Association Award for his novel Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace, the 2011 Matt Cohen Award for a distinguished lifetime of contribution to Canadian literature and the Canada-Australia Literary Prize. Article content He is a member of the Order of New Brunswick (2005) and the Order of Canada (2009). Article content Richards the Senator Article content When first appointed to the Senate by Trudeau in 2017, two years after the then-prime minister established the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments to make the Upper House less partisan, Richards joined the relatively new Independent Senators Group (ISG).
Winnipeg Free Press
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
A delicate structure
Fans of Madeleine Thien's writing could be excused for feeling impatient about the author's followup to her bestselling novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing. The novel, published in 2016, won the Montreal author the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and landed on the short list for the Booker Prize. The nine-year gap was worth the wait. Babak Salari photo Madeleine Thien is the author of four novels and a short story collection. Thien's new novel, The Book of Records, published May 6 by Knopf Canada, is sure to satiate fans and win new ones, and will likely again draw the attention of national and international book prize juries. Thien didn't anticipate the novel, which she started in 2016, would take so long to come together. 'All I knew at the beginning was I wanted to write about a father and daughter and I had this idea about a building made of time — I was thinking about Einstein: time is space, space is time. I thought, 'What are the ideas or the questions I want to live with, I need to live with for the next five years?'' Thien says by Zoom. 'It turned out to be almost 10 years — maybe because I felt like I was chasing something for a long time that I couldn't pin down.' The Book of Records defies simple summation. In the future, Lina and her ailing father flee their home in Foshan as it is ravaged by the effects of climate change, arriving at a mysterious building called the Sea, which seems to exist outside conventional notions of space and time. Other migrants come and go from the Sea, but the two settle in for years. Lina has brought three books with her that detail the lives of three real-life thinkers: 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza; 8th-century poet Du Fu;and 20th-century German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt. A trio of neighbours at the Sea, essentially stand-ins for the real-life trio, tell their stories in an attempt to set their proverbial records straight; Thien provides riveting accounts of actual events that took place in each of their lives. 'One of the paradoxes of writing literature is that you're almost always trying to capture in language that thing which is not capturable by language. And even if you're able to hold it in your hands, you think, 'But that's not it' — and the search continues. So much is intertwined, so much only becomes visible as the structure materializes over the course of the book. It's not something that can be seen in the first 15 or 20 pages — it requires going on a journey together,' Thien says. On her journey, the 50-year-old Thien found more literary companions in authors Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges and Yoko Ogawa. 'The joy of having those as figures in my mind … was that they're all so different from each other, and I'm so different from them, so there was no model, just companions, and maybe a recognition that they too, had been looking for structures that could hold that thing that is just beyond our grasp,' she says. Despite the weighty philosophical and political themes that run throughout The Book of Records — displacement, migration, climate change, biography and betrayal — the novel is propulsive, with the ideas acting like brushstrokes that form a rich and complete picture by the novel's end. The Book of Records While writing the book, Thien envisioned a reader along the lines of Lina's age (she's seven when she arrives at the Sea with her father and 14 when they leave). 'There's a lightness of touch that I wanted, that sense that these ideas belong to all of us, that I, too, am just an ordinary reader. I'm not a philosopher, I'm not a theorist of any kind, just a person looking for answers, meaning, some way to hold all this together,' Thien says. 'Young Lina was very much at the forefront of my thoughts as an imagined reader.' Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. The passages detailing events in the lives of Spinoza, Du Fu and Arendt saw Thien attempt to see the world from their respective perspectives, a task requiring extensive research. 'I tried to read what they were reading at that time in their life, but it was an almost impossible task because someone like Hannah Arendt was reading Immanuel Kant when she was 14 and that is not me,' she says, laughing. And while Thien found it daunting to tell their stories in her sprawling, fluid literary landscape, she also enjoyed the trio's company. 'I did feel at times — and maybe every fiction writer has to believe this — I felt they were sitting beside me. They were so real to me. They are so real to me. I feel like I spent nine years in a room with the three of them talking to each other and that I was just literally the housekeeper,' she says. Thien launches The Book of Records at McNally Robinson Booksellers' Grant Park location at 7 p.m. tonight, joined in conversation by Jenny Heijun Wills. Ben SigurdsonLiterary editor, drinks writer Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press's literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben. In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press's editing team before being posted online or published in print. It's part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
CBC
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
5 Canadian emerging writers named 2025 Writers' Trust rising stars
Social Sharing Allison Graves, Zilla Jones, Dilan Qadir, Liz Stewart and Isabella Wang have been named the 2025 Writers' Trust of Canada's Rising Stars. Launched in 2019, the Writers' Trust Rising Stars program is an initiative supporting Canadian writers early in their careers. Each year, five talented emerging writers are chosen and mentored by prominent Canadian authors. The recipients also receive $5,000 and attend a two-week self-directed writing residency at Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts on the Toronto Islands. Graves is a Newfoundland-based writer and musician. Soft Serve, her debut fiction collection, was shortlisted for an Atlantic Book Award. Her work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Riddle Fence Magazine and Room Magazine. Her fiction has been longlisted for prizes in Prism, The Fiddlehead and The Newfoundland Quarterly. She is completing her PhD in Irish Literature and teaches at Memorial University. Graves will be mentored by Michael Crummey. Crummey is the Newfoundland-based author of The Adversary, which is nominated for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award, The Innocents, Sweetland, Galore and Arguments with Gravity and Passengers. Three of Crummey's novels have been shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction — Sweetland, Galore and The Innocents. "Allison Graves' writing is generous even when it bites, and it's hilarious as often as it is sobering, which makes her a joy to read," said Crummey in a press statement. Jones is an author based in Winnipeg. She's won many literary awards including the Journey Prize, the Malahat Review Open Season Award, the Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction and the FreeFall short fiction award. Her debut novel, The World So Wide, was released in March 2025. Jones made the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize long list for Our Father and has longlisted twice for her story How to Make a Friend, in 2022 and 2023; in 2024, Jones was included on the CBC Short Story Prize shortlist. The same year, Jones made the long list for the CBC Nonfiction Prize. She was also named a writer to watch by CBC Books in 2024. Zilla Jones' debut novel explores a mixed-race woman's search for identity and belonging The CBC Poetry Prize is open now until June 1. The winner receives $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and their work will be published on CBC Books. You can learn more here. Jones will be mentored by Charlotte Gill, a B.C.-based writer of Indian and English descent. She is the author of memoirs Almost Brown and Eating Dirt, which won the B.C. National Award for Canadian Nonfiction. Her short story collection, Ladykiller, was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award. She currently teaches writing at the University of King's College. She lives in British Columbia. "Zilla Jones' scenes are ingeniously imagined and beautifully written with rewards that endure long after the last page has turned," said Gill a press statement. Qadir is a Kurdish-Canadian writer based in Vancouver. His work, which spans poetry, fiction and nonfiction, has been published in Wax Poetry and Art, Quae Nocent Docent Anthology and The Fiddlehead. He was longlisted for the Vera Manuel Award for Poetry and received the PEN Canada-Humber College Writers-in-Exile Scholarship. Quadir will be mentored by Rabindranath Mahara, the author of several novels and short story collections. His latest is the short story collection A Quiet Disappearance. His novel The Amazing Absorbing Boy won both the Toronto Book Award and the Trillium Book Award. He has previously been nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, The Chapters First Novel Award and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. In January 2013, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. His work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star. "Dilan Qadir's keen observational eye, his ability to blend humour and trauma, his understanding of the historical forces that shape our world, and the authenticity of his writing all evoke admiration," said Qadir in a press statement. Stewart is a writer from Manitoba who currently lives in B.C. She won the This Side of West 2021 Prose and Poetry Contest and has been published in Best Canadian Stories 2025, Plenitude Magazine, carte blanche and Camas Magazine. Stewart will be mentored by Casey Plett, the author of A Dream of a Woman, Little Fish, A Safe Girl to Love. She is a winner of the Amazon First Novel Award, the Firecracker Award for Fiction and a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award. Her work has also been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Plett splits her time between New York City and Windsor, Ont. "Liz Stewart's work is honest and beautiful — real, singular, and urgent," said Plett in a press statement. "Stewart is making something intimate that anyone can believe and see." Wang is the writer of chapbook On Forgetting a Language and Pebble Swing, which was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She was shortlisted for Arc's Poem of the year Content, The Malahat Review's Far Horizons Awards for Poetry and Long Poem Contest, Minola Review's Inaugural Poetry Contest and twice for the New Quarterly's Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. She lives in B.C. and directs Revise-Revision Street, a nonprofit editing and mentorship program. Wang will be mentored by Joseph Dandurand, a poet from the Kwantlen First Nation. His collections include The East Side of It All, which was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize, The Rumour, SH:LAM (The Doctor) and I Will Be Corrupted. He is the director of the Kwantlen Cultural Centre and the artistic director of the Vancouver Poetry House. In 2019, he won the Latner Writers' Trust Poetry Prize. "Isabella Wang demonstrates immense promise as she constructs more of herself," said Dandurand in a press statement. "There will be great poetry created by such creativity and resourcefulness." The Writers' Trust of Canada is an organization that supports Canadian writers through literary awards, fellowships, financial grants, mentorships and more. It gives out 11 prizes in recognition of the year's best in fiction, nonfiction and short story, as well as mid-career and lifetime achievement awards. The Writers' Trust Rising Stars program is supported by presenting sponsor BMO Financial Group, Clair Duff in memory of Catherine Shepard, Deb MacLeod and Ward Sellers, as well as John Terry and Lisa Rochon and the T.R. Meighen Family Foundation.
