Locals aplenty on Plains prize lists

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This article was published 04/07/2020 (2300 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Four Winnipeggers are among the nominees for this year’s High Plains Book Awards recognizing books about or by writers from the Prairie provinces as well as the states of Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.

Nominated in the poetry category are Shirley Camia for Mercy, and Catherine Hunter for St. Boniface Elegies. Hunter’s book was shortlisted last fall for the Governor-General’s Award for poetry and won the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry at this year’s Manitoba Book Awards. Colleen Nelson is nominated in the young adult category for her novel Spin.

Artist KC Adams is nominated in the Indigenous writer category for Perceptions, her book about a photo project that explored public perceptions of Indigenous people. Both the other nominees in the Indigenous category are also from Canada: Wayne Arthurson of Edmonton for his novel The Red Chesterfield, and Jesse Thistle of Hamilton for his memoir From the Ashes, which is partially set in Saskatchewan. Earlier this year Thistle was the non-fiction winner in the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.

Winnipeg’s Great Plains Publications also has a book nominated in the short story category: Winning Chance, by Edmonton playwright and novelist Katherine Koller.

Since 2006, the awards have been presented in the fall at the literary festival in Billings, Mont.; but this year’s recipients will be announced online Sept. 26.

 

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Following this year’s flare-ups among romance writers and American literary critics, literary organizations in the U.S. continue to implode like dying stars.

The latest are International Thriller Writers (ITW), currently roiled in controversy over the board’s response to a sexual assault complaint, and the Poetry Foundation, under attack for a perceived weak response to Black Lives Matter.

According to ITW, the issue began in April when a member’s lawyer notified the board of an incident that occurred at a non-ITW mystery writers’ conference last year. The board noted in reply that its policy covers ITW events, that this year’s ITW conference has been cancelled as a result of COVID-19 and that law enforcement is better able to investigate complaints of matters such as sexual assault.

The response led to resignations, an online petition calling for more diversity in the organization and a call for authors nominated for ITW awards to withdraw them from competition.

Meanwhile, the Poetry Foundation is under fire for a four-sentence statement of support for Black Lives Matter that some members found “worse than the bare minimum.” Members complained the statement lacked any specifics on how the foundation would oppose racism and support black poets.

Dissident members launched a petition that led to the resignations of the foundation’s president and the chair of its board, respectively a former president of Chicago’s Northwestern University and an investment bank executive.

The stakes in this literary dispute are higher than usual. In 2003, pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lily, apparently not having a cat, left the foundation a $100 million bequest. The foundation’s endowment is now worth US$257 million. Details are available at wfp.to/poetryfoundation.

 

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The U.K.-based Booker Prize, meanwhile, joined the growing list of literary organizations in dispute this month when novelist Damian Barr led a successful campaign to oust the prize’s honorary vice president.

Barr discovered Emma Nicholson, widow of the prize’s founder, had voted against same-sex marriage in 2013 in her capacity as a member of Britain’s House of Lords, where she sits as Lady Nicholson of Winterbourne.

Although the Booker board initially responded by stating that Nicholson’s position is purely honorary and she has no say in selecting judges or winning books, within days she was removed from her position. Barr went on to demand a diversity review of the organization. 

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