Parent-inspired books win Writers’ Trust prizes
Hay memoir is about caring for her aging parents, while Page examines a long marriage
More than $260,000 in prizes was handed out at the Writers’ Trust Awards Wednesday, with seven of this nation’s top writers in a variety of genres going home with prizes of up to $60,000.
The Hilary Weston Prize for Nonfiction, worth $60,000, went to Ottawabased author Elizabeth Hay for All Things Consoled: A Daughter’s Memoir (McClelland & Stewart), in which Hay explored how the dynamics in her family changed when she became caregiver to her formidable mother and father.
“The path she and her family travel is crooked and long, filled with hospital beds and doctors’ visits, foggy minds and shuffling confusion. But Hay’s prose elevates this ordinary rite of passage — the death of one’s parents — to something rare and poetic,” the jury wrote in its citation.
The winner of the prestigious and, at $50,000, lucrative Rogers Fiction Prize was Kathy Page for Dear Evelyn (Biblioasis), a sweeping historical fiction novel inspired by her own parents’ long marriage and love letters. The night marked the 22nd anniversary of this prize being awarded.
“What initially begins as a familiar wartime love story morphs into a startling tale of time’s impact on love and family, as well as one’s complex search for personal meaning and truth. … By integrating themes that are universally understood by readers and skilfully crafting endearing characters that surprise and delight, Page has created a poignant literary work of art,” the jury said.
Shashi Bhat of New Westminster, B.C., won the Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her story “Mute.” This award often identifies new writers heading for big things by honouring the best short story published by an emerging writer in a Canadian literary magazine. The prize is worth $10,000 and the journal that publishes the winning entry receives $2,000.
More than 300 writers, publishers and other members of the arts community gathered for the event at CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio in a ceremony hosted by poet, novelist and TV writer Zoe Whittall.
Besides the marquee awards, four authors received prizes for their contributions to Canadian literature through a body of work: Jordan Scott (Royston, B.C.) won the $25,000 Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize; David Bergen (Winnipeg) won the $25,000 Matt Cohen Award, which recognizes a lifetime of distinguished work by a Canadian writer; Christopher Paul Curtis (Windsor, Ont.) won the $25,000 Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People; and Alissa York (Toronto), previous winner of the Journey Prize, took home the $25,000 Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award, which honours a writer of fiction in mid-career.
The four finalists for the fiction and nonfiction prizes will each receive $5,000, while the two runners-up for the short story award will each take home $1,000.