Canadian University Press Releases/Newswire

Source: University of Guelph
http://www.uoguelph.ca/mediarel/2006/10/two_u_of_g_auth.html

Two U of G Authors Nominated for Governor General's Literary Awards

October 17, 2006

Two
University of Guelph English professors have been nominated for a 2006
Governor General's Literary Award. Dionne Brand is nominated in the poetry
category for her book Inventory, and Andre Alexis is nominated in the
children’s literature category for Ingrid and the Wolf.

Trinidad-born Brand is the author of nine volumes of poetry, including the
acclaimed Land to Light On, which won a Governor General’s Award in 1997,
and thirsty, which won the Pat Lowther Award and the Canadian Griffin Poetry
Prize. The Toronto resident also wrote In Another Place, Not Here, a 1998
New York Times notable book, and At the Full and Change of the Moon.

Brand was recently named winner of the Harbourfront Festival Prize at the
International Festival of Authors and the Toronto Book Award for her novel
What We Long For.

Alexis is the acting associate director of U of G’s new master of fine arts
in creative writing program. He was born in Trinidad in 1957 and grew up in
Canada. His début novel, Childhood, won the Chapters/Books in Canada First
Novel Award in 1998, shared the Trillium Award and was shortlisted for the
Giller Prize and the Rogers Communications Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

He is also the author of an internationally acclaimed collection of short
stories, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa, which was shortlisted for a
Regional Commonwealth Prize, and has published a play, Lambton Kent. Alexis
hosts the CBC program Skylarking, which airs Sundays at 4 p.m. on Radio Two.

The other authors shortlisted in the poetry category are Ken Babstock,
Elizabeth Bachinsky, John Pass and Sharon Thesen. The other authors in the
children’s literature (text) category are William Gilkerson, Glen Huser,
Teresa Toten and Budge Wilson. The winners will be announced Nov. 21.

The Canada Council for the Arts funds, administers and promotes the Governor
General’s Literary Awards, worth $15,000 each. Each winner receives a
specially bound copy of the winning book. Non-winning finalists each receive
$1,000 in recognition of their selection as finalists.

For media questions, contact Communications and Public Affairs: Lori Bona
Hunt, 519-824-4120, Ext. 53338, or Rachelle Cooper, Ext. 56982.