The Meagre Tarmac on the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize

All of us here at Biblioasis are proud to announce that Clark Blaise was named among the five finalists for the Rogers Writers' Trust Prize For Fiction this morning for his wonderful collection The Meagre Tarmac. Finding ourselves in Toronto following Ray Robertson's glorious Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live launch, we headed to the Rogers' announcement at Ben McNally's and we nearly jumped for joy when the first words by the announcer turned out to be "exploring the places where tradition, innovation, culture and power meet with explosive force...." At that moment, no words could have sounded more beautiful.

Heartfelt thanks to the jurors for this: Rabindranath Maharaj, Emma Donoghue and Margaret Sweatman, and warm congratulations to the rest of the authors and their publishers:

Michael Christie. The Beggar's Garden (Harper Collins)
Patrick deWitt. The Sister's Brothers. (Anansi)
Esi Eduygan. Half-Blood Blues (Thomas Allen)
Dan Vyleta. The Quiet Twin. (Harper Collins)

for more information on the Award and the shortlist, please go here.

To see my shaky iPhone video of the first 16 seconds of the announcement, please click below. (I had to put my phone to clap, which ended that.)