From the Canadian Authors Association
June 21, 2014 – Tonight the Canadian Authors Association (CAA) continued its long-held tradition of writers honouring writers and announced the winners of its 2014 Literary Awards competition during the CanWrite! Conference and Retreat in Orillia, Ontario.
Joseph Boyden was awarded the CAA Fiction Award for The Orenda (Penguin Group Canada). Boyden receives a silver medal and $2000 cash prize. The shortlist for this award included Anthony De Sa (Kicking the Sky) and Claire Mulligan (The Dark).
Charlotte Gray was named the recipient of the Lela Common Award for Canadian History for The Massey Murder: A maid, her master, and the trial that shocked a country (HarperCollins Canada), and she also receives a silver medal and $2000 prize. This year’s Canadian History shortlist included Ruth Holmes Whitehead (Black Loyalists: Southern Settlers of Nova Scotia’s First Free Black Communities) and David O’Keefe (One Day in August: The Untold Story Behind Canada’s Tragedy at Dieppe).
Renée Sarojini Saklikar won the CAA Poetry Award for children of air india (Nightwood Editions). Saklikar receives a silver medal and $2000 prize. The shortlist also included Catherine Graham (Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects) and Tom Wayman (Winter’s Skin).
Grace O’Connell won the Emerging Writer Award for a promising writer under 30; her achievements include the novel Magnified World (Knopf Canada). O’Connell receives a $500 prize. The shortlist included Kim Fu (For Today I Am a Boy) and Michael Hingston (The Dilettantes).
The awards finalists were announced at the Canadian Authors’ annual literary awards gala, held at the Best Western Plus Mariposa Inn and Conference Centre in Orillia, Ontario.
Introduced in 1975, the CAA Literary Awards honour Canadian writers who achieve excellence without sacrificing popular appeal – a tradition originally begun in 1937 with the creation of the Governor General’s medals for literature (now overseen by the Canada Council of the Arts). The competition is open to all writers who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada.
Founded by Stephen Leacock and several other prominent Canadian writers in 1921, the Canadian Authors Association has continued to maintain a focus on writers helping writers since its inception.