Hamilton author on RBC Taylor Prize shortlist

Hamilton author Daniel Coleman is among the five finalists for the $30,000 RBC Taylor Prize for non-fiction.

Coleman’s exploration of the Niagara Escarpment, “Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place” (Wolsak and Wynn) was among the contenders selected by a threemember jury for the prestigious award, to be handed out Feb. 26 in Toronto. Other nominees were: James Maskalyk’s “Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine” (Doubleday Canada), which contrasts medicine as practised in a world-class Toronto hospital to the bare bones clinics in Sudan and Ethiopia;

Tanya Talaga’s “Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City” (House of Anansi Press), which traces the lives and deaths of several teens in northern Ontario;

Max Wallace’s look at the final days of the Second World War, “In the Name of Humanity” (Allen Lane Canada); and Stephen R. Bown’s “Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on Bering’s Great Voyage to Alaska” (Douglas & McIntyre), about the explorers sent across Russia by Peter the Great to seek a route to North America.

In addition to the winner’s prize, the runners-up will each receive $5,000.

The winner also gets to award a $10,000 emerging writers prize to an author of their choosing. That prize will be handed out shortly after the winner is named.

A jury including Christine Elliott, Anne Giardini, and James Polk evaluated 153 non-fiction Canadian written books submitted by 110 Canadian and international publishers.

The RBC Taylor Prize was set up in 1993 to honour journalist Charles Taylor.