Insomniac Authors On The Podium
Jeff Latosik has won the 2011 Trillium Prize for the year's best book of poetry in English for his debut collection, Tiny, Frantic, Stronger. Latosik accepted his award, worth $10,000, at a lunchtime ceremony on June 17th at the Toronto Reference Library. Insomniac's poetry editor, Paul Vermeersch, was on the shortlist for the Trillium Book Award for his collection of poems, The Reinvention of the Human Hand (McClelland and Stewart).
Liz Bugg's first novel, Red Rover, has won the 2011 "Goldie" for Best Debut Author, awarded by the Golden Crown Literary Society, a US lesbian organisation designed to support and strengthen lesbian literature.
Anne Perdue's debut collection of short stories, I'm a Registered Nurse Not a Whore, has collected yet more praise with its appearance on this year's nine-title short list for the ReLit Award for Short Fiction. The awards, given for a novel, a short story collection and a poetry collection, are short for Regarding Literature, Reinventing Literature and Relighting Literature, and are the pre-eminent prize in independent Canadian publishing. The winners receive a gold ring consisting of three bands imprinted with the letters of the alphabet. Or they will if a sponsor is found for this year's rings: at press time, the creators of the award were seeking a patron to underwrite the $2000 cost of the rings.