| Publishing world celebrates it's own, despite tough economic times
Alberta writers and publishers celebrated a bountiful year at last Saturday's 2002 Alberta Book Awards, sponsored by the Writers Guild of Alberta and the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. Despite nasty economic times for Canadian presses, record attendance at the event was just one sign that the province's writing and publishing world is finding ways to thrive.
The list of award nominees, the eventual winners and even a quick scan of the banquet hall at the Palliser Hotel all gave reasons for optimism. Youthful authors like poet Arran Fisher and playwright Chris Craddock mixed with long-recognized writers. The awards were competitive enough that six juries felt the need to award a second-place prize, and one simply arrived at a tie.
Two welcome new awards in honour of Grant MacEwan have been added, funded by Alberta Community Development. There was even a "sleeper" title – A.K. Hellum's A Painter's Year in the Forests of Bhutan –that swept the awards for Cover Design, Illustration, Book Design and Non-Fiction (plus a "silver" for Trade Book of the Year).
Coming to the podium for the fourth time, Hellum said: "I believe in miracles." The juror's statements suggest that they believed in "freshness" in format, style and approach.
In a publishing world with less depth, there is no room for such surprises: everyone knows all of the good books in advance. If you're wondering whether Alberta has many worthy writers in a wide range of genres, take a look at the quality of the nominees who did not receive awards.
Well-established writers of the quality of Andrew Nikiforuk, Cheryl Foggo or Darlene Barry Quaife were recognized with nominations but not automatically acclaimed in their categories.
Some of the decisions were unsurprising. Thomas Wharton's Salamander won the Georges Bugnet Award for Best Novel, and Aritha van Herk (for Mavericks) and Ken McGoogan (for Fatal Passage) split the new Grant MacEwan Author's Award. Katherine Holubitsky's award for Children's Literature, for Last Summer in Agatha, confirmed the Edmonton writer's previous success with Alone at Ninety Foot.
However Gloria Sawai confessed that her Best First Book award for A Song For Nettie Johnson was the "first ever award in her life." She went on to win her second ever award a few minutes later, the Howard O'Hagan Award for Short Fiction. Marilyn Dumont won for poetry, with Green Girl Dreams of Mountains, and Chris Craddock's Naked at School Won for Drama.
Several awards looked to the future by recognizing the young and the "emerging." Cobblestone Creek was named Emerging Publisher of the Year. The new Grant MacEwan Young Writers' Scholarships went to Sarah Beamish, Lindsay Stamhuis and Brenna Wilson of Edmonton, along with Timothy J.G. Cole of Calgary. Caterina Edwards's essay What Remains topped the 49 entries for the Jon Whyte Memorial Essay Prize. |
