(TORONTO, March 4, 2004) - Brian Fawcett has been awarded the Pearson Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize for his book Virtual Clearcut: Or, the Way Things Are in My Hometown (Thomas Allen Publishers). The $15,000 award was presented last night at the Writers' Trust of Canada's third annual Great Literary Awards ceremony in Toronto.

"Literary prizes are usually awards for conventional behavior, and since I'm not quite capable of conventional behavior, I'm very surprised to receive this,"; Fawcett said in his acceptance speech. "I can only conclude that the jurors recognized that my attempt to document the destruction of my hometown bears witness to a deeper shift in human values that is afflicting virtually every hinterland community across the planet...so I accept this surprising award because it will help to draw more attention to what has happened to a town of good and decent people in North Central British Columbia, and with the hope that others will recognize that the troubles in Prince George are structurally similar to what is occurring across human settlements everywhere.";

The finalists for the Pearson Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize were:

Mark Abley for Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages

J. Edward Chamberlin for If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground

Brian Fawcett for Virtual Clearcut: Or, the Way Things Are in My Hometown

Taras Grescoe for The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists

Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle for Sahara: A Natural History