 | Thursday, November 23, 2023 | |  | | | | Ottawa writer Kai Thomas and Toronto academic Christina Sharpe were among the honourees at the 2023 Writers' Trust of Canada Awards, an annual event that recognizes the country's best writers and books of the year. The Writers' Trust of Canada gave out seven prizes totalling $322,000 in recognition of the year's best in fiction, nonfiction and short story, as well as mid-career and lifetime achievement awards. | | |  | | | | The Waterloo, Ont.-based high school student has won the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize for her poem lotus flower blooming into breasts. She will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and her poem is published on CBC Books.
This year's winner and finalists were selected by a jury comprised of Joseph A. Dandurand, Catherine Graham and Tolu Oloruntoba. | | |  | | | | Above all other titles, writer, filmmaker and organizer Astra Taylor is a reader. She's also presenting 2023 Massey Lectures on her book The Age of Insecurity which explores the pervasive insecurity in our current reality and how the institutions that promise to make us more secure actually contribute to this feeling.
Taylor caught up with CBC Books ahead of the lectures to share the books that shaped her thinking around insecurity. The CBC Massey Lectures airs every evening this week on IDEAS at 8 p.m. (8:30 p.m. NT) on CBC Radio One. All five lectures are already available to download wherever you get your favourite podcasts. | | |  | | | | Columnist Donna Bailey Nurse stopped by The Next Chapter to recommend two novels past and present: Jamaica Kincaid's The Autobiography of My Mother and Zalika Reid-Benta's River Mumma.
Nurse is a Toronto-based writer and literary critic who champions Black women writers. | | |  | | | | Graphic artist Nora Krug earned widespread acclaim for her 2018 book, Belonging. An illustrated and hand-lettered memoir, Belonging is Krug's powerful investigation into her German family's involvement in the Second World War and the impact of history on successive generations. Writers & Company’s Eleanor Wachtel spoke to Krug in 2019 from her home in Manhattan. | | |  | | | | Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson's nonfiction work Valley of the Birdtail was honoured at the 2023 Quebec Writers' Foundation (QWF) literary awards, the 25th anniversary of the awards, recognizing writers across seven categories.
Valley of the Birdtail is a nonfiction tale which charts the trials and triumphs of two neighbouring communities in western Manitoba through the lives of two residents and their families. | | |  | | | | For the protagonist of CS Richardson's latest novel, the trajectory of his life is marked by vibrant colours. All the Colour in the World expands on the impact of art on a young man through an experimental book about memory and tragedy.
The Toronto-based writer and award-winning book designer spoke to The Next Chapter’s Ryan B. Patrick about the healing power of art and literature. | | |  | | | | Canadian cartoonist and writer Bryan Lee O’Malley has turned his original story on its head for the new animated adaptation, Netflix’s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. Spanning six books, O’Malley offers a new perspective of the charismatic slacker protagonist who battles the “seven evil exes” of his new love.
Almost 20 years after the original book was first published, the 2023 film is influenced by an evolving pop culture society. | | |  | | | | John Vaillant has won the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize for his book, Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast. The annual British award celebrates the best of nonfiction written in English with a £50,000 ($85,851 Cdn) prize. Fire Weather delves into the events surrounding the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, the multi-billion-dollar disaster that melted vehicles, turned entire neighbourhoods into firebombs and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. | | |  | | | | Acclaimed Canadian poet and novelist Anne Michaels has a way of taking her readers on a journey to new worlds, introducing them to characters who try to answer some of life's most difficult questions. Her long-awaited third novel, Held, spans 115 years and deals with themes familiar to her work: history, grief and the power of love.
Michaels spoke with Q's Tom Power about her literary career. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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