Bernadette McDonald wins American Alpine Club Lit Award

B.C. author Bernadette McDonald has won the 2012 American Alpine Literary Award.

McDonald, founding vice-president of mountain culture at the Banff Centre and the author of seven books, has received the honour for her book Freedom Climbers (Rocky Mountain Books, 2011), which recounts the true story of Polish adventurers who escaped Communist oppression after the Second World War and became the world’s foremost climbers of the Himalayas.

With the ACC award, McDonald has become the first writer to have scored the mountain lit hat-trick for a single title, having also won Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival and Britain’s Boardman Tasker Prize. (McDonald is the first Canadian to receive the British honour.)

The ACC will present McDonald with the award at a benefit dinner in Boston on March 3.

In December, Vertebrate Publishing acquired U.K. and Irish rights to Freedom Climbers, which they will release it paperback and ebook formats later this month.

Guy Delisle wins gold at French comic book awards

Guy Delisle’s latest graphic novel, Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, has been named best comic book of the year at the 39th Angoulême International Comics Festival. The Quebec-born artist was presented with the Fauve d’Or on Sunday as part of the closing festivities at the annual comics festival in the southwest of France, touted as the biggest comics convention in the world.

Delisle’s book, a memoir of the author’s time living in East Jerusalem, titled Chroniques de Jérusalem and published by Éditions Delcourt in France, was selected by the jury from among 58 comics published in French between December 2010 and November 2011. The English-language version of the graphic novel is forthcoming from Drawn & Quarterly in April.

Naomi K. Lewis wins Colophon Prize

Winnipeg publisher Enfield & Wizenty has awarded its third annual Colophon Prize for Fiction to Naomi K. Lewis for her short story collection, I Know Who You Remind Me Of.

Awarded for the best unpublished manuscript with “literary and commercial appeal,” the prize includes publication and a $5,000 advance. I Know Who You Remind Me Of will be released in September.

The author of the novel Cricket in a Fist (Goose Lane Editions), Lewis lives in Calgary, where she teaches creative writing and was the Calgary Public Library’s writer-in-residence in fall 2011.

Two runners-up were also granted publishing contracts with E&W: Méira Cook’s The House on Sugarbush Road, a novel set in post-apartheid South Africa, and Richard Van Camp’s short story collection, Godless but Devoted to Heaven, which explores contemporary aboriginal life in Canada.

Barbara Reid named to Order of Ontario

Children’s author and illustrator Barbara Reid is set to be appointed to the Order of Ontario. Reid will receive the province’s highest honour for her “unparalleled” influence on children’s publishing in Canada over the past 20 years, according to a statement from the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.

A life-long resident of Toronto, Reid has published more than 20 books, sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide, and is internationally recognized for her bold and unusual plasticine illustrations. She is the author of well-known titles such as Two By Two, Perfect Snow, and The Party, which won the Governor General’s Award for illustration in 1997. Her most recent book is Picture a Tree, published in 2011 by Scholastic Canada.

Lieutenant Governor David C. Onley will invest Reid and 26 other Ontarians at a ceremony at Queen’s Park on Jan. 26.

Gill, Westoll among Charles Taylor Prize nominees

Just as a pair of novels came to dominate the past fall’s literary awards season, so too has a pair of non-fiction titles, about tree-planting in the Pacific Northwest and a group of chimps living out their days in a Quebec animal sanctuary, emerged as the books to beat.

Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe (Greystone Books) by Charlotte Gill  and The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery (HarperCollins Canada) by Andrew Westoll (both of which were named Q&Q books of the year for 2011) led the nominations for the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction, the shortlist for which was announced in Toronto Tuesday morning. Both titles are also on the shortlist for the $40,000 B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-fiction, which was unveiled last month.

The complete shortlist, as chosen by jurors Allan M. Brandt, Stevie Cameron, and Susan Renouf, is as follows:

• Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis (Knopf Canada)
• Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe by Charlotte Gill (Greystone Books)
• The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit by J.J. Lee (McClelland & Stewart)
• Afflictions and Departures by Madeline Sonik (Anvil Press)
• The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery by Andrew Westoll (HarperCollins Canada)

The winner of the $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize will be announced at a gala luncheon in Toronto on March 5.

Tim Wynne-Jones, Tom Dawe among writers appointed to Order of Canada

Last week, Governor General David Johnston announced that he will appoint prolific children’s writer Tim Wynne-Jones an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Wynne-Jones has written more than 25 books, twice received the Governor General’s Literary Award for children’s literature, and earned the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award three times. According to a press release from the Governor General’s office, the latest honour was bestowed for “his contributions to Canadian literature.”

Among the other 65 new appointments were Vinyl Cafe host Stuart McLean, author of 10 books, who was named an Officer for “his contributions to Canadian culture as a storyteller and broadcaster.” Food writer Anita Stewart, whose latest book, Anita Stewart’s Canada, was published in 2008 by HarperCollins Canada, was made a Member of the Order for “her contributions as a journalist, author, and culinary activist.” Tom Dawe, poet and founding member of St. John’s publisher Breakwater Books, was also named a Member thanks to “his contributions to Newfoundland literature as a poet, teacher and co-founder of Breakwater Books and TickleAce magazine.”

(Dawe followed up the honour by winning the Writer’s Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador’s 2011 Heritage and History Book Award for his poetry collection Where Genesis Begins in St. John’s on Tuesday night.)

Moira Young wins Costa Book Award

Canadian-born author and former opera singer Moira Young has won the U.K.’s Costa Book Award for children’s literature for her debut novel, Blood Red Road.

Young’s post-apocalyptic dystopian story, which has been compared to Suzanne Collins’ best-selling The Hunger Games, is the first in her Dust Lands trilogy. Earlier this year, director Ridley Scott acquired the film rights for his production company, Scott Free U.K.

The Costa Book Award “recognizes some of the most enjoyable books of the year by writers based in the U.K. and Ireland.” One of the five category winners, who each received £5,000, will be selected for the £30,000 Costa Book of the Year prize, to be announced on Jan. 24.

Young will be competing against Andrew Miller and his novel Pure; Carol Ann Duffy, who won for her poetry collection The Bees; Christie Watson, who won the first novel award for Tiny Sunbirds Far Away; and Matthew Hollis, who won best biography for Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas.

Canadian Culinary Book Awards renamed for 15th anniversary

The Canadian Culinary Book Awards has cooked up a new name and brand identity in time for its 15th anniversary.

Now known as Taste Canada – The Food Writing Awards, the prizes will “further celebrate Canadian culinary food culture, Canadian authors and publishers, while acknowledging and respecting the authority and history of the original awards,” according to a press release.

Managed by the University of Guelph and an awards committee under the leadership of a new national chair, Karen Gelbart, this year’s categories have been revised to include awards for the best French and English general cookbooks, single-subject cookbooks, regional/cultural cookbooks, and culinary narratives.

Submissions deadline is Feb. 1.

Arabic short story wins inaugural Rainbow Caterpillar kidlit award

Toronto-based Rainbow Caterpillar Multilingual Children’s Bookshop named Ahmad Marouf the winner of the first Rainbow Caterpillar Children’s Literature in a Mother Language Award. The bookshop presented Marouf with the $750 prize at the Canadian Ethnic Media Association’s annual awards gala in Toronto on Saturday night.

Ahmad Marouf, pictured far right, received the Rainbow Caterpillar prize for children's literature at CEMA's annual gala Saturday night in Toronto. Photo: Alexander Gershstein, courtesy of CEMA

Marouf, a journalist and script writer with Radio Canada International’s Arabic division, beat out 36 other entries in eight languages to claim the prize for his Arabic-language short story “Sea of Pearls.”

The panel of 13 multilingual judges also singled out the following works for honourable mention:

• Farzaneh Moaven, “Who Do You Love the Most?” (Farsi)
• Letizia Tesi, “Gino Salamino” (Italian)
• Sonia Sa, “The Happy King” (Portuguese)
• Liet Lee Lopes, “The First Snowman” (Spanish)
• Gerald Luzangi, Dorothy Luzangi, and Verdiana Mhate Luzangi, “Hunter with the Snake” (Swahili)

The award recognizes excellence in writing for children in a language other than French or English by a Canadian citizen or resident. In a press release launching the contest, bookshop owners Happie Testa and Hanoosh Abbasi said the award supports “vibrant literary production for children in foreign languages, but with a uniquely Canadian perspective.”

Quillcast episode four: Clark Blaise and The Meagre Tarmac

Quillcast is a podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders. In this episode, recorded during Toronto’s International Festival of Authors in October, Catherine Bush interviews Clark Blaise about his career and the writing life.

Blaise recently released his first new short story collection in nearly two decades. Shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, The Meagre Tarmac (Biblioasis) is a collection of linked stories exploring various characters from the South Asian diaspora. Bush is coordinator of the University of Guelph’s creative writing MFA program and the author of three novels, including Claire’s Head.

Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

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