news | Wednesday February 15, 2017

Once in Blockadia long-listed for the George Ryga Award!

[Once in Blockadia cover]

The 2017 George Ryga Award for Social Awareness has published its long list of nominated titles, and we are so pleased to see Stephen Collis’s latest collection of poetry on the list! Called by Eden Robinson “the most dangerous poet in Canada,” in Once in Blockadia Collis is in search of how we can continue to resist – as we only begin to understand the extent of our complicity and the depths of the predicament we are in.

This year’s three judges – author/professor Trevor Carolan, Vancouver Public Library branch manager Jane Curry, and journalist/author Beverly Cramp – selected the following long list of ten titles, all of which were published in 2016 in British Columbia. In alphabetic order by author surname, the ten titles on the long list are:

  • Once in Blockadia, Stephen Collis (Talonbooks)
  • Tomboy Survival Guide, Ivan Coyote (Arsenal Pulp)
  • Wade Davis: Photographs, Wade Davis (D&M)
  • The News We Deserve: The Transformation of Canada’s Media Landscape, Marc Edge (New Star)
  • I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up, James Hoggan with Grania Litwin (New Society)
  • The Native Voice: The Story of How Maisie Hurley and Canada’s First Aboriginal Newspaper Changed a Nation, Eric Jamieson (Caitlin)
  • Remembered in Bronze and Stone: Canada’s Great War Memorial Statuary, Alan Livingstone MacLeod (Heritage House)
  • The Peace in Peril: The Real Cost of the Site C Dam, Christopher Pollon (Harbour)
  • Dysconnected: Humans Isolated by their Personal Technology, Anton Scamvougeras (AJKS Publishing)
  • The Defiant Mind: Living Inside a Stroke, Ron Smith (Ronsdale Press)

For a complete list or recipients, visit bcbookawards.ca. A shortlist will appear in the Spring issue of BC BookWorld.