Honours for author

Leacock Medal longlist for Curve Lake writer Drew Hayden Taylor

The latest work of fiction from Curve Lake writer Drew Hayden Taylor has been longlisted for the Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.

Take Us To Your Chief is the writer’s humourous take on 1950s atomic-age science fiction through a First Nation lens. Published by Douglas and McIntyre, the book came out in October and features nine short stories.

This year’s longlist of 11 books will be narrowed down May 3, with a shortlist of three finalists announced then.

The winning writer is named (receives a $15,000 prize) at a gala dinner June 10 at Geneva Park Conference Centre near Orillia.

Take Us To Your Chief features the stories he would have like to have read as a child, the author told The National Post in December.

“It used to irritate me when I’d read interviews with musicians or writers who say, ‘Oh, I write what I would want to read.’ I find that rather self-indulgent,” he told writer Paul Tainton. “However, in this particular case, because I grew up without seeing any indigenous faces in science-fiction, this is one of the few times when I’ve said, ‘I would really like to write what I would like to have read as a child.’”

Hayden Taylor is the author of numerous books, ranging from humour to essays to fiction, as well as plays and screenplays for television. His most recent work is a play called Crees in Caribbean, which came out in January and will be staged in Thunder Bay and Mazatlan, Mexico.

His other current projects include a commissioned play on Sir John A. Macdonald for the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and a work for Tarragon Theatre in Toronto on the ongoing dispute over the Pigeon Lake rice beds.

Other books on the Leacock longlist:

John Armstrong for A Series of Dogs, New Star Books.

Mona Awad for 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, Penguin Canada.

Gary Barwin for Yiddish for Pirates, Random House Canada.

Judy Batalion for White Walls, New American Library/Random House Canada.

Lesley Crewe for Mary, Mary, Nimbus Publishing.

C.P. Hoff for A Town Called Forget, Five Rivers Publishing.

Marni Jackson for Don’t I Know You, Flatiron Books.

Amy Jones for We’re All in This Together, McClelland & Stewart.

Jack Knox for Hard Knox: Musings from the Edge of Canada, Heritage House Publishing.

Noah Richler for The Candidate: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Doubleday Canada.

There are 11 nominees this year instead of 10 because two of the books tied in the judges’ marks.