Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
By: Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson
Posted: 11/5/2014 1:00 AM | Comments:
TWO writers with Manitoba ties each won $25,000 prizes at the Writer's Trust Awards in Toronto Tuesday night.
Former Winnipegger Miriam Toews was awarded the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for her novel All My Puny Sorrows, which was released in April. The novel closely parallels Toews' own life as it pertains to the mental-health struggles and eventual suicide of her sister.
Toews' novel is shortlisted for the $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize, which will be awarded on Nov. 10 in Toronto.
Winnipeg author Joan Thomas, meanwhile, was awarded the Writers' Trust of Canada's Engel/Findley Award. The award is given annually to "a mid-career writer in recognition of a remarkable body of work, and in anticipation of future contributions to Canadian literature," according the Writers' Trust website.
In order for a writer to be eligible for the Engel/Findley Award, they must have published "no less than three works of literary merit which are predominantly fiction." Thomas' third novel, The Opening Sky, was released in September by McLelland & Stewart.
Thomas's Oct. 7 Winnipeg book launch came the same day as the announcement she had been shortlisted for the $25,000 Governor General's Award for Fiction, which will be awarded Nov. 18. The following day she got the call about the Engel/Findley Award.
"I was so thrilled," said Thomas by phone from Toronto, where she received the award. "I didn't think I'd be eligible -- my books had come out so close together."
Toews won the same award in 2009; Winnipeg author David Bergen was awarded the same prize the following year.
Thomas's first novel, 2008's Reading by Lightning, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book and the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and was a finalist for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year. Her followup, 2010's Curiosity, was also a finalist for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year and was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
The Opening Sky, the story of a Wolseley-based family faced with an unexpected pregnancy which brings to light past traumatic events, has been lauded by critics as some of Thomas's best work.
For Thomas, the Engel/Findley Award offers the chance to look ahead to future writing projects.
"I have a book idea that would involve research travel, so if I decide to go with that idea, this award will allow me to do that research and travel," she said.
And while the prize and recognition is certainly welcomed by Thomas, she acknowledged writers still face immense challenges.
"Writers are all struggling these days. We struggle to create literature that shapes a complex world, but we're also struggling financially.
"This award is given in anticipation of future work -- it says 'stick with it.'"
The Engel/Findley Award jury -- composed of writers Frances Itani, Lisa Moore and Nino Ricci, the latter two former winners themselves -- praised Thomas's "profound understanding of the human condition," calling her prose "limpid and sensual" in a jury citation.
Concluded the jurors, "We, as readers, anticipate the richness of her future endeavours."
ben.macphee-sigurdson@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 5, 2014 C3
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Local authors have the write stuff - Winnipeg Free Press
Dengan url
https://goartikelasik.blogspot.com/2014/11/local-authors-have-write-stuff-winnipeg.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Local authors have the write stuff - Winnipeg Free Press
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Local authors have the write stuff - Winnipeg Free Press
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar