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BOOK PRIZES 1989
THE BEST WAY TO Win a BC BOOK PRIZE is to write about Indians. Or trees. Or preferably both. That's the tradition that has emerged over the five year history of the province's top awards for books.
This year's ceremonies produced four winners with Native content or packaging. Coincidentally, the Book Prizes committee adopted a Native design, 'Eagle Full Circle' by Tofino's Roy Vickers, as its emblematic seal.
Stein: The Way of the River (Talonbooks $39.95), an historical and anthropological appreciation of the Stein Valley by Michael M'Gonigle and Wendy Wickwire, was selected by 30 bookstore operators to receive the Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice award. Designed by Ken Seabrook, the multifaceted coffee table book was a key factor in the decision of Fletcher Challenge to declare a one year moratorium on the company's plans to log the Stein region.
The Duthie Prize is given for a superior production combined with strong sales. All winners since 1985 have featured Native culture or forestry.
UBC anthropologist Robin Ridington's study of the Dunne-xa tribe in the sub arctic, Trail to Heaven: Knowledge and Narrative in a Northern Native Community (Douglas & McIntyre $29.95), won the Hubert Evans Non Fiction Prize.
Selected over more widely celebrated authors Edith Iglauer (Fishing with John) and Paul Yee (Saltwater City), Ridington donated his prize money to help the Beaver Indians' legal battles with the federal government over land rights.
"I'm just the person who gave voice to the stories," said Ridington. Native leader Gary Ochre of the Dunne-xa tribe provided an impromptu and somewhat didactic plea for improved understanding of his people to the predominantly white audience of 300.
A second surprise winner was Celia Haig-Brown's Resistance and Renewal (Tillicum Library $10.95), a study of Native students forced to attend the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops.
Resistance and Renewal took the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize over The Accidental Airline, the second topselling B.C. book of the year in a row from Tim Spilsbury and Howard White.
With a withered totem pole on its cover, Charles Lillard's Circling North (Sono Nis) won the first Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize as a collection of poems about Lillard's extensive travels in the B.C interior and on the northern coastline.
Dorothy Livesay was on hand to present the newly-named prize in her honour and received a standing ovation in recognition of her writing career that spans half a century. The most eloquent acceptance speech of the evening was also one of the shortest. Previously nominated for her first children's book in the inaugural year of the B.C. Book Prizes, Mary Ellen Lang Collura of Parksville won the Sheila A. Egoff Prize for Children's Literature with Sunny (Irwin $9.95).
'What the book is really about is kids with damaged brains, grandmothers with broken hearts and families with sinking dreams," said Collura.
"For all the little kids in the world with Down Syndrome who like to ride horses and be happy, I accept this' award.'
Bill Shermbrucker of Capilano College won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for his fictionalized memoir of his mother, Mimosa (Talonbooks $11.95).
Representing the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Recreation and Culture, deputy minister Ken Mcleod announced a new Writers in Libraries program. Coordinated by Library Services and Cultural Services, the program will pay 50% of the expenses for libraries wishing to sponsor readings by B.C. writers.
Each library system can receive up to $1,000 per year. Funds not spent by the government will not necessarily be channeled into the literary arts. (For info, call Cultural Services at 356-1718 or Library Services at 356-1791.)
McLeod also announced that the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing of Simon Fraser has been selected to undertake a study of the B.C. publishing industry and existing support programs for the industry and related organizations. It is scheduled to be tabled in late July.
The May 13th gala at' the Hotel Vancouver, ably hosted by CBC humourist Bill Richardson, was generally regarded as the most smoothly coordinated Book Prizes banquet to date.
For the first time, five of the six prizes went to books from B.C. publishers. Forty-nine publishers in Canada submitted 112 books for judging.
[Summer/BCBW 1989]
This year's ceremonies produced four winners with Native content or packaging. Coincidentally, the Book Prizes committee adopted a Native design, 'Eagle Full Circle' by Tofino's Roy Vickers, as its emblematic seal.
Stein: The Way of the River (Talonbooks $39.95), an historical and anthropological appreciation of the Stein Valley by Michael M'Gonigle and Wendy Wickwire, was selected by 30 bookstore operators to receive the Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice award. Designed by Ken Seabrook, the multifaceted coffee table book was a key factor in the decision of Fletcher Challenge to declare a one year moratorium on the company's plans to log the Stein region.
The Duthie Prize is given for a superior production combined with strong sales. All winners since 1985 have featured Native culture or forestry.
UBC anthropologist Robin Ridington's study of the Dunne-xa tribe in the sub arctic, Trail to Heaven: Knowledge and Narrative in a Northern Native Community (Douglas & McIntyre $29.95), won the Hubert Evans Non Fiction Prize.
Selected over more widely celebrated authors Edith Iglauer (Fishing with John) and Paul Yee (Saltwater City), Ridington donated his prize money to help the Beaver Indians' legal battles with the federal government over land rights.
"I'm just the person who gave voice to the stories," said Ridington. Native leader Gary Ochre of the Dunne-xa tribe provided an impromptu and somewhat didactic plea for improved understanding of his people to the predominantly white audience of 300.
A second surprise winner was Celia Haig-Brown's Resistance and Renewal (Tillicum Library $10.95), a study of Native students forced to attend the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops.
Resistance and Renewal took the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize over The Accidental Airline, the second topselling B.C. book of the year in a row from Tim Spilsbury and Howard White.
With a withered totem pole on its cover, Charles Lillard's Circling North (Sono Nis) won the first Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize as a collection of poems about Lillard's extensive travels in the B.C interior and on the northern coastline.
Dorothy Livesay was on hand to present the newly-named prize in her honour and received a standing ovation in recognition of her writing career that spans half a century. The most eloquent acceptance speech of the evening was also one of the shortest. Previously nominated for her first children's book in the inaugural year of the B.C. Book Prizes, Mary Ellen Lang Collura of Parksville won the Sheila A. Egoff Prize for Children's Literature with Sunny (Irwin $9.95).
'What the book is really about is kids with damaged brains, grandmothers with broken hearts and families with sinking dreams," said Collura.
"For all the little kids in the world with Down Syndrome who like to ride horses and be happy, I accept this' award.'
Bill Shermbrucker of Capilano College won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for his fictionalized memoir of his mother, Mimosa (Talonbooks $11.95).
Representing the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Recreation and Culture, deputy minister Ken Mcleod announced a new Writers in Libraries program. Coordinated by Library Services and Cultural Services, the program will pay 50% of the expenses for libraries wishing to sponsor readings by B.C. writers.
Each library system can receive up to $1,000 per year. Funds not spent by the government will not necessarily be channeled into the literary arts. (For info, call Cultural Services at 356-1718 or Library Services at 356-1791.)
McLeod also announced that the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing of Simon Fraser has been selected to undertake a study of the B.C. publishing industry and existing support programs for the industry and related organizations. It is scheduled to be tabled in late July.
The May 13th gala at' the Hotel Vancouver, ably hosted by CBC humourist Bill Richardson, was generally regarded as the most smoothly coordinated Book Prizes banquet to date.
For the first time, five of the six prizes went to books from B.C. publishers. Forty-nine publishers in Canada submitted 112 books for judging.
[Summer/BCBW 1989]
Submitted on February 5, 2004 in By David.
