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Coast looms large at BC Book Prizes

Nominations
book prizes
Author and BC Book Prizes nominee Theresa Kishkan (left) with her publisher Mona Fertig of Mother Tongue Publishing.

A Pender Harbour author, Theresa Kishkan, and three local publishers, Harbour Publishing in Madeira Park, Douglas & McIntyre and Caitlin Press have garnered nominations in the 2018 BC Book Prizes for their titles published last year. 

Kishkan’s book, Euclid’s Orchard and Other Essays, (reviewed in Coast Reporter in October 2017) was published by Mother Tongue on Salt Spring Island. Though it was mathematics that prompted a new way of looking at Kishkan’s world, the collection is rich with intimate stories and literary images of her family members – from her grandparents through her formidable father to her own children, now grown up. She has been nominated for the Hubert Evans non-fiction prize. 

Both Harbour and Douglas & McIntyre have been recognized in the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice category, which is awarded to the publisher and author of a book published in 2017 that is most successful in terms of public appeal, initiative, design, production and content. BC and Yukon booksellers determine the winner by ballot vote. The titles in the running for this prestigious prize include Hello Humpback! (Harbour) by Roy Henry Vickers and Robert Budd, an illustrated children’s book. Also vying for the Bill Duthie Award is Spindrift: A Canadian Book of the Sea (Douglas & McIntyre). Edited by Michael and Anita Hadley, Spindrift collects the best maritime writing from Canada’s most significant literary voices into one volume. Another Douglas & McIntyre title, Dirty Windshields: The Best and the Worst of the Smugglers Tour Diaries, a hilarious rock ‘n’ roll memoir by bestselling author and CBC broadcaster Grant Lawrence, is also up for the same prize. 

Andrea MacPherson’s book, What We Once Believed, has been nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. It is the product of another local publisher, Caitlin Press. 

Recipients of the awards in seven categories receive a cash prize of $2,000 and a certificate. This year’s winners will be announced at the 34th Annual Lieutenant Governor’s BC Book Prizes Gala on May 4 at the Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront in Vancouver. For more information about the prizes, go to www.bcbookprizes.ca.