Literary Awards Shortlists
2012 Shortlists
Shortlists Announced | The Shortlists | Media Contacts | Media Release
CAA Announces Literary Awards Shortlists
The Canadian Authors Association is pleased to announce the Canadian Authors Association Literary Awards shortlist for 2012.
These finalists were announced at the association's CanWrite! 2012 conference at Lakehead University, Orillia Campus, Ontario. The 2012 winners will be announced at the CAA Literary Awards Readings & Dinner on Saturday, July 28, 2012, during the Leacock Summer Festival at the Leacock Museum National Historic Site in Orillia, Ontario.
2012 CAA Literary Awards Shortlists
The 2012 CAA Literary Awards shortlists under each category are as follows:
The CAA Award for Fiction
- Patrick deWitt for The Sisters Brothers, published by House of Anansi Press
- Helen Humphreys for The Reinvention of Love, published by HarperCollins Canada Publishers Ltd.
- Miriam Toews for Irma Voth, published by published by Alfred A. Knopf, distributed by Random House of Canada
Patrick deWitt: The Sisters Brothers
Patrick deWitt was born on Vancouver Island in 1975. He is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Sisters Brothers, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and son.
Contact Information
For interviews or information about Patrick deWitt, contact Bridget Haines, House of Anansi Press:
- T 416 363 4343 x225
- E
Helen Humphreys: The Reinvention of Love
Helen Humphreys is an award-winning author whose work has been published around the world. Her novel Coventry was a New York Times Editors' Choice, a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year, and a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. Humphreys won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for Afterimage and the Toronto Book Award for Leaving Earth, while her much-loved novel The Lost Garden was a Canada Reads selection. Her non-fiction book, The Frozen Thames, was a #1 bestseller. The recipient of the Harbourfront Festival Prize for literary excellence in 2009, she lives in Kingston, Ontario.
Contact Information
For interviews or information about Helen Humphreys contact Claire Sharpe, HarperCollins Canada Publishers:
- T 416 975 9334 x165
- F 416 975 9884
- E
Miriam Toews: IrmaVoth
Miriam Toews is the author of 4 previous novels: Summer of My Amazing Luck; A Boy of Good Breeding; A Complicated Kindness (winner of the 2004 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction) and The Flying Troutmans (winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize), and one work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life. She lives in Toronto.
Contact Information
For interviews or information about Miriam Toews, contact Michelle MacAleese, Associate Editor, Knopf Random Canada Publishing Group:
- T 416 957 1581
- E
Lela Common Award for Canadian History
- Douglas Gibson for Stories About Storytellers, published by ECW Press
- Richard Gwyn for Nation Maker, published by Random House Canada
- Jonathan F. Vance for Maple Leaf Empire, published by Oxford University Press
Douglas Gibson: Stories About Storytellers
Douglas Gibson established the first editorial imprint in Canada at McClelland & Stewart in 1986, and was the Publisher at M&S ("The Canadian Publisher") from 1988 until 2004, when he moved back to concentrate on his imprint, Douglas Gibson Books. He "retired" in 2008, at sixty-five. He has won many awards over the years, and is the first publisher to be made an Honorary Member of the Writers' Union of Canada. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Jane, when he is not travelling the country with his one-man stage show. His website is douglasgibsonbooks.com.
Contact Information
For interviews or information about Douglas Gibson, contact Sarah Dunn, Marketing Manager, ECW Press:
- T 416 694 3348 x152
- E
Richard Gwyn: Nation Maker
Richard Gwyn is an award-winning author and political columnist. He is widely known as a commentator for the Toronto Star on national and international affairs and as a frequent contributor to television and radio programs. His books include two highly praised biographies, Smallwood: The Unlikely Revolutionary on Newfoundland premier Joey Smallwood, and The Northern Magus on Pierre Elliott Trudeau. His book, Nationalism Without Walls: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Canadian, was selected by the Literary Review of Canada as one of the 100 most important books published in Canada. The first volume of Gwyn's biography of Macdonald was published in 2007, became a national bestseller and won the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.
Contact Information
For interviews or information about Richard Gwyn, contact Caleb Snider, Editorial Assistant and Assistant to the Publisher, The Knopf Random Canada Publishing Group:
- T 416 957 1570
- E
Jonathan F. Vance: Maple Leaf Empire
Jonathan F. Vance is a specialist in Canadian military and cultural history, war and society in the twentieth century, and social memory. From 2000 to 2010 he held the Canada Research Chair in Conflict and Culture, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2008. His book Death So Noble won the 1998 Sir John A. Macdonald Prize, the 1998 C.P. Stacey Award, and the 1998 Dafoe Book Prize. In 2010, A History of Canadian Culture won the Lela Common Award from the Canadian Authors Association.
Contact Information
For interviews or information about Jonathan F. Vance, contact Marina Politano, Oxford University Press:
- T 416 441 2941
- F 416 441 0427
- E
CAA Award for Poetry
- Brian Henderson for Sharawadji, published by Brick Books
- E.D. Blodgett for Apostrophes VII: Sleep' You' a Tree, published by The University of Alberta Press
- Goran Simić for Sunrise in the Eyes of the Snowman, published by Biblioasis
Brian Henderson: Sharawadji
Brian Henderson is the author of ten collections of poetry, the most recent of which, Nerve Language (Pedlar Press, 2007), was a finalist for the Governor General's Award. He holds a PhD in Canadian Literature, has worked in many facets of Canadian publishing, and is currently the director of Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Sharawadji is Brian's eleventh poetry collection.
Contact Information
For interviews or information about Brian Henderson, contact Kitty Lewis, Brick Books:
- T 519 657 8579
- E
E.D. Blodgett: Apostrophes VII: Sleep' You' a Tree
E.D. Blodgett, FRSC, is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta, and held the Louis Desrochers Chair in Études canadiennes, Campus Saint-Jean. His publications include Five-Part Invention: A History of Literary History in Canada, and Elegy. He has published 23 books of poetry, of which two were awarded the Governor General's Award. He has one other in press (Phrases, a bilingual edition of his French poems) and recently completed a book on the use of the child in French Canadian culture. Recently published are Praha, Apostrophes VII, and Alphabets. He is a past poet laureate of Edmonton.
Contact Information
For interviews or information about E.D. Blodgett, contact Monika Igali, The University of Alberta Press:
- T 780 492 7493
- F 780 492 0719
- E
Goran Simić: Sunrise in the Eyes of the Snowman
Goran Simić was born in Bosnia in 1952 and has been living in Canada since 1996, mostly in Toronto. He has published eleven books of poetry, drama, and short fiction, including Immigrant Blues, From Sarajevo With Sorrow, Sunrise in the Eyes of the Snowman and Yesterday's People.
Contact Information
For interviews or information about Goran Simić, contact Dan Wells, Biblioasis:
- T 519 968 2206
- F 519 250 5713
- E
Emerging Writer Award
The winner of the Emerging Writer Award will be announced on July 23, 2012 along with the winners of the other award categories. There is no shortlist for this award.
About the CAA Literary Awards
Introduced in 1975, the CAA Literary Awards continue the association's long tradition of honouring Canadian writers who achieve excellence without sacrificing popular appeal. The above nine finalists were selected from over 300 nominations.
About the CAA
Founded by Stephen Leacock and several other prominent Canadian writers in 1921, the Canadian Authors Association has continued to maintain a focus on "writers helping writers" since its inception. Some 25,000 writers have been members of the CAA in its 88-year history, including Bliss Carman, Nellie McClung, and Robert W. Service.
Media Contacts
- Anita Purcell
- Executive Director
- TF 866 216 6222
- E
For information about the 2012 Leacock Summer Festival or the Leacock Museum National Historic Site:
- Fred Addis
- Curator
- Leacock Museum National Historic Site
- T 705 329 1908 x803
- E
- W www.leacockmuseum.com
Media Release
The Media Release (PDF - 135k) is available for printing or posting.
www.CanAuthors.org/awards/shortlist.html
Updated May 21, 2012
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