Saskatchewan Book Awards, The Trouble With Lions

The Saskatchewan Book Awards gala (check their web site) was held in Regina over the weekend. Over 450 folks attended, and the organizers really laid on a big bash, with books short-listed in thirteen categories from 261 published this year in a province with a population of just about 1 million. If one computes that on the basis of an author producing work once in four years it comes to about 1000 published authors, which is a pretty amazing stat.

The Trouble With Lions was short-listed in two categories, and I have added a scan that shows each of those, with the names of the other authors and the brief notes made by the jurors about each one. Just looking at the comments on my own work I was astonished to see how the book had affected the two groups of jurors. Here is the Saskatoon book list If one reads the comments one might think that they had read two completely different books! And here is the nonfiction list


The winners in my categories were Donna Caruso, for her Journey Without A Map, Growing Up Italian: A Memoir, (Thistledown Press) (Non-Fiction) and Louise Bernice Halfe, The Crooked Good, (Coteau Books) (Saskatoon Book).

Both are super books, and it was great to be in the company of so many gifted folks. One of the highlights of the evening for me was the fact that the keynote speaker, Maria Campbell, is both an author and a storyteller. I think that sometimes we forget how closely these two disciplines are linked, but one of our most iconic authors, Robertson Davies, did not forget. In The Merry Heart he wrote

“The author today is the descendant of the storyteller who went into the market-place, sat himself down upon his mat, and beat upon his collection bowl, crying, “Give me a copper coin and I will tell you a golden tale!”

Saskatchewan Writers Guild and Book Awards

Just off a good weekend at the Saskatchewan Writers Guild AGM. The overall theme of the gathering was For The Love of Words and a stellar cast of invited speakers took us through sessions on Romance Writing, Writing About Sex, Loving Language, and Writing About Love in Poetry. There were also sessions titled Love Your Guild (which told us all about the Guild’s many programs) and Promoting Your Writing.

A new board was also elected at the AGM, Here is the group photograph of most of us. From left to right, Lisa Wilson, Bob Calder, Cathy Fenwick, Susan Hogarth, Gloria Boerma, Paula Jane Remlinger, Jerry Haigh and Danica Lorer. Susan is the executive director of the Guild, and all the others are elected. There are two board members missing from the photo. Scott Miller, who comes from Estevan had a five-hour journey home on his motorbike, so did not hang around, while Michael Trussler had not been able to get to any of the events.

Despite my concerns about the amount of travel that I do, and the lengthy absences from Canada, mainly in Africa, the members saw fit to ask me to stand as the incoming president. I would not have taken it on had it not been for the fact the several members of the board are staying on, and both Bob Calder, the past-president, and Susan, will be around to guide me through patches where I don’t know the ropes, while other board members have also volunteered to do what they can. It will be a great group to work with.

The other good news is that the folks at the Saskatchewan Book Awards have invited me to “read” at the Saskatoon brunch for short-listed authors on the 23rd of November. The event takes place in the city’s Bessborough hotel. Just like the other four authors who are listed in different categories I will have ten minutes on the podium. That will make for an interesting challenge! I will almost certainly take less than two minutes on actually reading, and use the rest to skip-stone through a few bits as brief stories.