Giller Shortlist Announced

BY JOHN COLEMAN

The Shortlist for the 2010 Giller Prize was announced Tuesday, October 5. Selected from the longlist of thirteen publications announced September 20, the five shortlisted candidates are:

– David Bergen, for the novel The Matter With Morris

– Kathleen Winter, for the novel Annabel

– Johanna Skibsrud, for the novel The Sentimenatlists

– Alexander MacLeod, for the short story collection Light Lifting

– Sarah Selecky, for the short story collection This Cake Is For The Party

Think you know which one of these authors will win? If so, enter the Guess The Giller contest for a chance to win VIP passes to the 2011 Giller Gala.

Stay tuned November 9 for the 2010 Giller Prize winner announcement.

Giller Prize Longlist; Shortlist Announcement Tomorrow

BY JOHN COLEMAN

The longlist for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the leading literary award for Canadian authors, was announced Monday, September 20. This year’s judges – Canadian journalist and broadcaster Michael Enright, American author and professor Claire Messud, and renowned UK author Ali Smith – decided on thirteen titles from ninety-eight submissions from a wide variety of Canadian publishers.

This year’s selections are diverse and somewhat surprising compared to previous years, with a balanced list of big and small presses, male and female authors, and novels and short story collections.

The 2010 Giller Prize for Fiction longlist is:

– The Matter With Morris by David Bergen (Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins)

– Player One by Douglas Coupland (House of Anansi Press)

– Cities Of Refuge by Michael Helm (McClelland & Stewart)

– Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod (Biblioasis)

– The Debba by Avner Mandelman (Other Press/Random House)

– The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (Dial/Random House)

– This Cake Is For The Party by Sarah Selecky (Thomas Allen Publishers)

– The Sentimentalists by Johanna Scabbard (Gaspereau Press)

– Lemon by Cordelia Strube (Coach House Books)

– Curiosity by Joan Thomas (McClelland & Stewart)

– Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart (McClelland & Stewart)

– Cool Water by Dianne Warren (Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins)

– Annabel by Kathleen Winter (House of Anansi Press)

The shortlist will be announced at a Toronto news conference tomorrow October 5 and the 2010 Giller Prize winner will be announced November 9.

While I have you here, I’d like to mention that the five nominees for the City of Toronto Book Award were announced recently. They are:

– Prince of Neither Here Nor There by Sean Cullen (Penguin)
– Valentine’s Fall by Cary Fagan (Cormorant)
– Where We Have To Go by Lauren Kirshner (McClelland)
– The Carnivore Mark Sinnett (ECW)
– Diary of Interrupted Days by Dragan Topologic (Random House Canada)

The Toronto book award has been running annually since 1974. This year’s finalists will read selections from their works at the Word On The Street book and magazine festival in Toronto on September 26. The winner will be announced October 14.

Best of the Net 2010 Nominees

Congratulations to our nominees for the Best of the Net 2010!

Nominees were eligible for selection if their piece was published in an issue of our ‘zine between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010.

Sundress Press established Best of the Net to promote the diverse and growing collection of voices that are choosing to publish their work online, a venue that still sees little respect from such yearly anthologies as the Pushcart and Best American series. The Best of the Net collection will hopefully help to bring more respect to an innovative and continually expanding medium.

You can read 2009’s winners and finalists, as well as the archive of past winners, at Best of the Net 2009.

Our nominees are:

Fiction
Lauren McDonald
Taped to a Rocket

Poetry
Jonathan Viguers
“it was right after she broke up with me.”

Rachel C. Fletcher
Reflecting on Life outside the Nunnery

Michelle Dominque
We Were Too Reckless With Our Hearts

Ivan Jenson
Bad Boy

Jason Blanco
left

Non-Fiction
Thomas Burchfield
The Wild Bunch: Down the Hole in Glorious Blood and Fire

Fight the (corporate book publishing) Man!

BY JOHN COLEMAN

Indie authors unite! The Next Generation Indie Book Awards are accepting submissions until March 2, 2011 (so don’t fret, you have plenty of time to finish your books). The contest is presented by the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group in cooperation with Marilyn Allen of Allen O’Shea Literary Agency, and works to promote the best of worldwide independent publications.

There are sixty categories including E-books, GLBT, Multicultural, and Novella from which winners are selected by a panel of expert editors, writers and publishers. The best overall fiction and non-fiction winners each receive $1,500, second place fiction and non-fiction winners receive $750, and third place fiction and non-fiction winners get $500. $250 goes to the Best Design Book entry, and individual winners of each category get $100. All finalists and winners will be listed in the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Catalogue for book buyers, and gain exposure on the Next Generation website for the following year. Check out the 2010 Winners and Finalists here. Furthermore, the best book of each category will be reviewed by top literary agent Marilyn Allen (Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark) of Allen O’Shea Literary Agency for possible representation.

To enter, you must complete an online entry form and make sure your books arrive at the Next Generation Indie Book awards office by March 2, 2011. Entries require a fee of $75.00 per title for the first category entered, any other categories entered for that title require a $50.00 fee. Two copies of the book must be sent for the initial category entry, and one copy for each additional category. You can enter as many titles in as many categories as you wish. Finalists and winners will be notified by May 15, 2011, with an official announcement for the public following shortly after on the website.

If you are sceptical about the Indie Book Awards, check out past winners’ testimonials. Not only do top winners receive cash prizes, but having your book mentioned as a finalist and reviewed by Marilyn Allen may open a number of doors within the publishing world.

Summer Writing Conference Scholarship: Deadline June 4

Our page on Facebook has the link to more information about DePaul University’s Summer Writing Conference Scholarship, offered in short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Act fast! The deadline for scholarship submissions is June 4.

Undergraduate Writing Contest

Hollins University, where Pulitzer prize winning author Annie Dillard and poet Natasha Trethewey got their start, is hosting an undergraduate writing competition as part of the 2010 Lex Allen Literary Festival.

There is a prize for poetry and a prize for fiction. Deadline is Monday, February 8. More information can be found here.

KR Contest

The Kenyon Review is holding their annual short story contest. Submissions will be accepted electronically between February 1 – February 28.