Literary Awards Shortlists

Search this Site

2011 Shortlists

Shortlists Announced | The Shortlists | Media Contacts | Media Release

CAA Announces Literary Awards Shortlists

honouring writing that achieves excellence without sacrificing popular appeal

The Canadian Authors Association is pleased to announce the Canadian Authors Association Literary Awards shortlist for 2011.

These finalists were announced at the association's CanWrite! 2011 conference in Grand Bend, Ontario. The 2011 winners were announced at the CAA Literary Awards Readings & Dinner on Saturday, July 23, 2011, during the Leacock Summer Festival at the Leacock Museum National Historic Site in Orillia, Ontario.

 

2011 CAA Literary Awards Shortlists

The 2011 CAA Literary Awards shortlists under each category are as follows:

The CAA Award for Fiction

Ken Finkleman: Noah's Turn

Photo of Ken Finkleman ‘Noah's Turn’

 

Ken Finkleman is a Canadian television and film writer, producer and actor. He is best known as the writer, creator and producer of the CBC Television series The Newsroom (also aired on PBS). He produced a number of other series for Canadian television as well, including Married Life (Comedy Central, Atlantis Films), Foolish Heart (CBC), Foreign Objects (CBC), More Tears (CBC), At the Hotel (CBC), and most recently Good Dog (HBO Canada, 2011).

Contact Information

For interviews or information about Ken Finkleman, contact Meghan Paton, Publicist, HarperCollins Canada Publishers:

  • T 416 975 9334 x165
  • F 416 975 9884
  • E

Tom Rachman: The Imperfectionists

Photo of Tom Rachman ‘The Imperfectionists’

 

Tom Rachman was born in London and raised in Vancouver. A graduate of the University of Toronto and the Columbia School of Journalism, he has been a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, stationed in Rome. From 2006 to 2008, he worked as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. He now lives in London, England where he is working on his second novel.

Contact Information

For interviews or information about Tom Rachman, contact Dan Sharpe, Random House of Canada:

  • T 416 957 1570
  • E

Robert J. Sawyer: Watch

Photo of Robert J. Sawyer ‘Watch’

 

Robert J. Sawyer — called the dean of Canadian science fiction by The Ottawa Citizen — is one of only eight writers (and the only Canadian) ever to have won all three of the world's top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year: the Hugo Award (which he won for Hominids), the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award (for The Terminal Experiment), and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (for Mindscan). The ABC TV series FlashForward was based on his novel of the same name. His physical home is in Mississauga; online, it's at sfwriter.com.

Contact Information

For interviews or information about Robert J. Sawyer, contact Justin Stoller, Penguin Group (Canada):

  • T 416 925 2249 x2461
  • E

Lela Common Award for Canadian History

Shelagh D. Grant: Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America

Photo of Shelagh D. Grant ‘Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America’

 

Shelagh D. Grant is the author of the Clio Award-winning Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet 1923; Sovereignty or Security? Government Policy in the Canadian North, 1936–1950; and more recently, Mittimatalik-Pond Inlet: A History, translated into Inuktitut. She is an adjunct professor in the Canadian Studies Program and research associate of the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies at Trent University, and she lives in Peterborough, Ontario.

Contact Information

For interviews or information about Shelagh D. Grant, contact Jamie Nadel, Douglas & McIntyre:

  • T 604 254 7191 x200
  • E

Stuart Houston and Bill Waiser: Tommy's Team: The People Behind the Douglas Years

Photo of Bill Waiser Photo of Stuart Houston ‘Tommy's Team: The People Behind the Douglas Years’

 

Stuart Houston received his MD from the University of Manitoba in 1951, specializing in radiology, and taught at the College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, from 1955 to 1996, where he was the head of the department of medical imaging from 1982–1987. A past president of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, he has written 11 books and co-edited the health-sector articles for the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan (2005). He received the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 1992, was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1993, and has been in Canadian Who's Who? since 2001.
 

Bill Waiser, a specialist in western and northern Canadian history, joined the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan in 1994, and served as department dead from 1995–1998. Bill has published several books, including the award-winning centennial history of the province — Saskatchewan: A New History. Bill was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2006 and elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada the following year.

Contact Information

For interviews or information about Stuart Houston and Bill Waiser, contact Cheryl Chen, Fitzhenry & Whiteside Publishers:

  • T 905 477 9700 x258
  • E

Ross King: Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven

Photo of Ross King ‘Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven’

 

Ross King is the author of three books on Italian history and art: Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, which was named the Book Sense Non-Fiction Book of the Year; Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling; and Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power. He has also published two novels, as well as The Judgment of Paris, a study of French Impressionism, which won the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction. In addition, he has been nominated for a National Book Critics' Circle Award, the Charles Taylor Prize, and the National Award for Arts Writing. He lives in England, near Oxford.

Contact Information

For interviews or information about Ross King, contact Jamie Nadel, Douglas & McIntyre:

  • T 604 254 7191 x200
  • E

or Stephen Weir, The McMichael Canadian Art Collection:

  • E

CAA Award for Poetry

Don Coles: Where We Might Have Been

Photo of Don Coles ‘Where We Might Have Been’

 

Don Coles is the author of ten books of poetry. He won the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 1993 for Forests of the Medieval World and the Trillium prize in 2000 for Kurgan. Formerly a professor at York University, he lives in Toronto.

Contact Information

For interviews or information about Don Coles, contact Simon Dardick, Véhicule Press:

  • T 514 844 6073
  • E

Garry Gottfriedson: Skin Like Mine

Photo of Garry Gottfriedson ‘Skin Like Mine’

 

Garry Gottfriedson, from the Secwepemc first nation (Shuswap), was born, raised and lives in Kamloops, BC. He is a rancher with a Masters degree in Education. He was awarded the Gerald Red Elk Creative Writing Scholarship by the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where he studied under Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Marianne Faithful and others. His works include 100 Years of Contact (Secwepmec Cultural Society, 1990), In Honor of Our Grandmothers (Theytus, 1994), Glass Tepee (Thistledown, 2002), Painted Pony (Partners in Publishing, 2005), Whiskey Bullets (Ronsdale, 2006) and Skin Like Mine (Ronsdale, 2010). He has read from his work across North America, Asia and Europe, and frequently gives creative writing workshops and lectures.

Contact Information

For interviews or information about Garry Gottfriedson, contact Erinna Gilkison, Ronsdale Press:

  • T 604 738 4688
  • E

Julia McCarthy: Return from Erebus

Photo of Julia McCarthy ‘Return from Erebus’

 

Julia McCarthy is originally from Toronto. She spent ten years living in the United States, most notably Alaska and Georgia. She has also lived in Norway and spent significant time in South Africa. Her previous collection of poetry, Stormthrower, was published by Wolsak and Wynn in 2002. She now resides in Nova Scotia where she works as a freelance writer and editor. Return from Erebus is her second poetry collection.

Contact Information

For interviews or information about Julia McCarthy, contact Kitty Lewis, Brick Books:

  • T 519 657 8579
  • E

Emerging Writer Award

The winner of the Emerging Writer Award will be announced on July 23, 2011 along with the winners of the other award categories. There is no shortlist for this award.

Return to Top

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.

Return to Top

Media Contacts

Media Release

The Media Release (PDF - 17k) is available for printing or posting.

Return to Top

www.CanAuthors.org/awards/shortlist.html
Updated August 3, 2011