Hats off to all our authors who have been having a great year so far! Our big winner so far this year is Marilyn Dumont’s The Pemmican Eaters, who was awarded this year’s Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry given by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta. This beautiful poetry collection recreates a palpable sense of the Riel Resistance. It evokes the period’s geography, culture, and politics through the eyes of those who experienced the battles as well as Gabriel and Madeleine Dumont, and Louis Riel.
“Dumont’s work is visual and evocative, highlighting recurring symbols and images of a natural world that will be familiar to any dweller of the Prairies . . . The Pemmican Eaters builds off the poet’s earlier work and highlights a writer who has mastered both craft and voice.” — Quill & Quire
“A rollicking poem about the fiddle (‘the first high call of the fiddle bids us dance/baits with its first pluck and saw of the bow/reels us, feet flick — fins to its lure and line’) becomes a statement of cultural pride and defiance — much like The Pemmican Eaters as a whole.” — Toronto Star
Congratulations, Marilyn!
Other amazing nominations we're proud to announce:
Alexandra Grigorescu’s Sunburst Award longlist nomination for her eerie and romantic Southern gothic drama, Cauchemar, a gothic drama that unfolds in the Louisiana swamplands. A young woman falls in love with a boat-captain and part-time musician. Her mysterious birth mother comes back into her life, she must confront deadly spirits that haunt the swamp and dark secrets of her past.
“Grigorescu applies just the right tonal touch to her macabre subject matter . . . The book is full of riveting prose about complex, fallible characters. I rushed through the final chapter impatient to see how it would all end — and the ambiguous final plot twist cries out for a sequel.” — Quill & Quire
Kevin J. Anderson’s nomination for the Colorado Book Award in the Science Fiction/Fantasy category for Clockwork Lives, a colourful creation that explores the places and the characters that still have a hold on their imagination. Marinda Peake is a woman with a quiet, perfect life in a small village; she long ago gave up on her dreams and ambitions to take care of her ailing father, an alchemist and an inventor. When he dies, he gives Marinda a mysterious inheritance: a blank book that she must fill with other people’s stories — and ultimately her own.
“With captivating illustrations by [Nick] Robles, it is easy to imagine the backdrop of the lives Miranda (and the reader) collects. Fantasy fans will be captivated by this steampunk version of The Canterbury Tales.” — Library Journal, starred review
David R. Boyd’s George Ryga Award shortlist nomination for his honest take on the environment in The Optimistic Environmentalist: Progressing Towards a Greener Future. In a world besieged by bad news about the state of the planet, this book explores the surprising breadth of our success stories – from endangered species brought back from the brink to the growing use of clean renewable energy and the progress we have made in cleaning up our air and water.
“Boyd offers hope and inspiration with The Optimistic Environmentalist, outlining progress that has been and is being made on the environmental front.” — David Suzuki Foundation