BOOKS

BOOKS Ohlin among the finalists for Atwood Gibson prize

by Craig Takeuchi

On September 29, the Writers’ Trust of Canada announced the five finalists for the $60,000 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

One finalist is from Vancouver: Montrealborn author and UBC creative writing program chair Alix Ohlin for We Want What We Want (House of Anansi Press).

“A gem full of startling surprises and insights into human nature,” the jury said of Ohlin’s collection of short stories. “These stories bring us into the company of people who want what we all want: to connect, to matter, to heal, and to cross into unfamiliar territory, hoping that the risk will be worthwhile.”

The other four books are Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen (New York), published by Harper Perennial; Fight Night by Miriam Toews (Toronto), published by Knopf Canada; August Into Winter by Guy Vanderhaeghe (Saskatoon), published by McClelland and Stewart; and The Strangers by Katherena Vermette (Winnipeg), published by Hamish Hamilton Canada.

Toews has previously won the award twice—for The Flying Troutmans in 2008 and All My Puny Sorrows in 2014—in addition to

UBC professor Alix Ohlin’s newest book is We Want What We Want. Photo by Emily Cooper. the Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award in 2010, which honours a Canadian author for their body of work.

The Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize jury consisted of authors Rebecca Fisseha from Toronto, Michelle Good from South Central B.C., and Steven Price from Victoria.

Each finalist receives $5,000, and the winner, to be announced at an online ceremony on November 3, will win $60,000.

This year, philanthropist Jim Balsillie is sponsoring the award as part of a $3-million commitment to supporting Canadian literature.

Formerly known as the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize from 1997 to 2019 and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the award was recently renamed in honour of Canadian writers Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson, two of the cofounders of the Writers’ Trust.

Last year, Toronto author Gil Adamson received the award for Ridgerunner.

THE BANFF CENTRE Mountain Film and Book Festival has announced its longlist of finalists for the 2021 Mountain Book Competition, which celebrates literature related to mountains.

The annual international competition offers more than $20,000 for awards in eight categories: nonfiction mountain literature, mountain fiction and poetry, mountain environment and natural history, adventure travel, mountain image, guidebooks, mountaineering articles, and climbing literature.

The 25 finalists in the eight categories were chosen from 153 book submissions from authors in 11 countries. Several B.C. writers were among the finalists.

UBC forest ecology professor Suzanne Simard is in the running for her book, Finding the Mother Tree (Allen Lane Canada, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada), in the Mountain Environment and Natural History category.

In the Guidebooks category, Metro Vancouver–raised, Squamish-based Taryn Eyton was named for Backpacking in Southwestern British Columbia (Greystone Books).

Writer Jörgen Vikström made the list in the Mountaineering Article category for “Polish Syndrome” for Mountain Life Magazine (September 2020), which is based in Garibaldi Highlands, B.C.

Among the other finalists from Canada, Ontario-raised, U.K.–based Jessica J. Lee is one of the nominees in the Adventure Travel category for Two Trees Make a Forest: Travels Among Taiwan’s Mountains and Coasts in Search of My Family’s Past (Hamish Hamilton Canada, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada), which won the 2020 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. g

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