Danuta Gleed Shortlist: Official Announcement

May 6, 2009

Press Release for Immediate Release

SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED FOR THE DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD

The Writers’ Union of Canada is pleased to announce the shortlist of nominees for the twelfth annual DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD. The Award recognizes the best first English-language collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in 2008.

Judges Merilyn Simonds, J.J. Steinfeld, and Rudy Wiebe shortlisted the following nominees:

Ian Colford: Evidence (The Porcupine’s Quill)

Pasha Malla:The Withdrawal Method (House of Anansi Press Inc.)

Rebecca Rosenblum: Once (Biblioasis)

Ahmad Saidullah: Happiness and other Disorders (Key Porter Books Limited)

Betsy Trumpener: The Butcher of Penetang (Caitlin Press)

"The five shortlisted books exhibit an exhilarating array of voices and styles, presenting stories ranging from the idiosyncratic and fanciful, to the satirical and exotic, to the hard-edged and realistic; these works comment on the human condition in insightful, inventive ways that show the short story is thriving in Canada."

The DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD is a celebration of the life of Danuta Gleed, a writer whose short fiction won several awards before her death in December 1996. Danuta Gleed’s first collection of short fiction, One of the Chosen, was posthumously published by BuschekBooks. The Award is made possible through a generous donation from John Gleed, in memory of his late wife, and is administered by The Writers’ Union of Canada.

The Award consists of cash prizes for the three best first collections, with a first prize of $10,000 and two additional prizes of $500. The winners will be announced in Calgary, Alberta on May 23, 2009, during the Alberta Literary Awards at the joint Annual General Meetings of The Writers’ Union of Canada and The Writers Guild of Alberta. Their names will be posted on the Union’s website (www.writersunion.ca).

The Writers' Union of Canada is our country's national organization representing professional authors of books. Founded in 1973, the Union is dedicated to fostering writing in Canada, and promoting the rights, freedoms, and economic well-being of all writers. For more information, please visit www.writersunion.ca.