The CBC Literary Awards are a big deal for a winning author, and not just because Jian Gomeshi said so. The 12 winners (six English, six French) receive $6,000 for the first prize and $4,000 for the second prize in each of the three categories: Creative Nonfiction, Poetry and Short Story. The winning stories will also entertain delayed Air Canada passengers when they’re published in an upcoming issue of enRoute magazine.
This year, the juries—-which included CanLit hotshots like Heather O’Neill and David Bergen—-pored over 4,500 submissions to narrow down the selection to 22 finalists in Creative Nonfiction, 28 in Poetry and 29 in the Short Story category. Among the finalists are two of Halifax’s finest: Munju Ravindra, for her creative non-fiction piece, “Going Solo” and Sue Goyette for her poem, “Outskirts.”
“I’m thrilled to be on the shortlist,” Goyette writes me in an email. “It’s a burning log in this long winter for me.”
Tune into CBC Radio One on Thursday at 10:30am to hear who won. Shelagh Rogers interviews the winners Saturday at 4pm. On March 4 the winning pieces will read and available as a podcast on iTunes, at cbc.ca/podcasting page or cbc.ca/wordsatlarge.
UPDATE: Sue Goyette won!! She’s away in CBC-land now, but we’ll chat with her when she gets back to town.
This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2009.