news | Thursday March 8, 2012

Shortlists for 2012 B.C. Book Prizes Announced!

The shortlists for the 28th annual B.C. Book Prizes were announced today.

The winners, along with this year’s recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence, will be revealed at a gala in May.

We are especially delighted to note that Carmen Aguirre is a finalist for the Hubert Evans Non-fiction Prize for her celebrated memoir Something Fierce (Douglas & McIntyre) and that Sharon Thesen is a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize for her exquisite book Oyama Pink Shale (House of Anansi).

Also in the running for the Poetry Prize is Garry Thomas Morse for Discovery Passages (Talonbooks), a recent finalist for the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry.

Congratulations to all the nominees! Here is the complete list of all the finalists:

Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize:

Michael Christie, The Beggar’s Garden (HarperCollins Canada)
Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues (Thomas Allen)
Frances Greenslade, Shelter (Random House Canada)
Steven Price, Into That Darkness (Thomas Allen)
D. W. Wilson, Once You Break a Knuckle (Hamish Hamilton Canada)

Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, recognizing “the book that contributes most to the enjoyment and understanding of British Columbia”:

Chuck Davis, The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver (Harbour)
Fred Herzog, Fred Herzog: Photographs (Douglas & McIntyre)
Andrew Nikiforuk, Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing North America’s Great Forests (Greystone Books, with the David Suzuki Foundation)
Sheryl Salloum, The Life and Art of Mildred Valley Thornton (Mother Tongue)
Scott Watson, Thrown: British Columbia’s Apprentices of Bernard Leach and Their Contemporaries (Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery)

Hubert Evans Non-fiction Prize:

Carmen Aguirre, Something Fierce (Douglas & McIntyre)
Gary Geddes, Drink the Bitter Root (Douglas & McIntyre)
Charlotte Gill, Eating Dirt (Greystone Books, with the David Suzuki Foundation)
Theresa Kishkan, Mnemonic: A Book of Trees (Goose Lane Editions)
JJ Lee, The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit (McClelland & Stewart)

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize:

Patrick Lane, The Collected Poems of Patrick Lane (Harbour)
Susan McCaslin, Demeter Goes Skydiving (University of Alberta Press)
Garry Thomas Morse, Discovery Passages (Talonbooks)
John Pass, crawlspace (Harbour)
Sharon Thesen, Oyama Pink Shale (House of Anansi)

Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize:

Dan Bar-el and Rae Maté, Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? (Simply Read)
Nicola I. Campbell and Kim La Fave, Grandpa’s Girls (Groundwood)
Mike Deas, Dalen & Gole: Scandal in Port Angus (Orca)
Robert Heidbreder and Marc Mongeau, Shake-Awakes (Tradewind)
Sara O’Leary and Julie Morstad, When I Was Small (Simply Read)

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize, for best non-illustrated book written for children:

Glen Huser, The Runaway (Tradewind)
Pamela Porter, I’ll Be Watching (Groundwood)
Karen Rivers, What is Real (Orca)
Caitlyn Vernon, Nowhere Else on Earth: Standing Tall for the Great Bear Rainforest (Orca)
Moira Young, Blood Red Road (Doubleday Canada)

Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award, “presented to the originating publisher and author(s) of the best book in terms of public appeal, initiative, design, production and content”:

Chuck Davis, The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver (Harbour)
Charlotte Gill, Eating Dirt (Greystone Books, with the David Suzuki Foundation)
Fred Herzog, Fred Herzog: Photographs (Douglas & McIntyre)
Gary Hynes, Island Wineries of British Columbia (TouchWood)
Robert J. Wiersema, Walk Like a Man: Coming of Age with the Music of Bruce Springsteen (Greystone)