Literary alumni shine
Concordia alumna Johanna Skibsrud rocked the Canadian literary establishment by winning the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize for her debut novel, The Sentimentalists.
She wasn’t the only graduate vying for a major writing award this year. Nine were nominated for 2010 Governor General’s Literary Awards, which were announced November 16, and Quebec Writers’ Federation Awards, which will be revealed on November 23.
“Of course, the recognition and the honours are very gratifying, and the money is nice,” Montreal-based Lazer Lederhendler said earlier this month, but “that’s not my main motivation.” He was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award for The Breakwater House, the English translation of La maison des temps rompus by Pascale Quiviger. He won the same category in 2008, and has been nominated numerous times.
Lederhendler completed an MA in English in 1993. “One of the things I really appreciated at Concordia was the opportunity to be introduced to all sorts of writers,” he said, adding that professors Mary di Michele and Robert Majzels in particular influenced him.
Three other Concordia graduates were nominated for the Governor General’s 2010 awards, which will be presented in Ottawa on November 25. Julie Flett’s Owls See Clearly At Night was shortlisted for the Children’s Literature-Illustration category, Onze petites trahisons by Agnès Gruda was nominated for Fiction (French), and Michael Harris’s Circus was in the Poetry category. (None won.)
On November 23, the Quebec Writers’ Federation will reveal its award winners. Six alumni are finalists, including Harris for Circus and Monique Polak for The Middle of Everywhere, in the Children’s and Young Adult Literature category.
“Even after all the books I’ve done, I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, like I’m just beginning,” said Polak. A prolific young-adult author who also teaches at Marianopolis, she obviously does know what she’s doing: she won the same QWF prize last year for What World is Left.
Polak, who earned her Master’s degree in 1984, found the environment at Concordia conducive to her literary studies. “I loved it. I felt very supported,” singling out her thesis advisor Lewis Poteet, and the late professor Michael Brian as influencing her teaching style.
Larissa Andrusyshyn is amongst the finalists for the QWF First Book Prize for Mammoth, Kate Hall’s The Certainty Dream is a contender for the A.M. Klein Prize in Poetry, and Done with Slavery by Frank Mackey is nominated for the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction. Doug Harris’ YOU comma idiot is shortlisted for two awards, the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and the QWF First Book Prize.
Related links:
• Concordia Alumni Relations
• Concordia Department of English
• Governor General’s Literary Awards
• Quebec Writers’ Federation Awards