The Transatlantic Agency is delighted to congratulate Plum Johnson and her debut memoir, THEY LEFT US EVERYTHING, (Penguin Canada), the winner of the 2015 Charles Taylor Prize. The RBC Charles Taylor Prize commemorates Charles Taylor’s pursuit of excellence in the field of literary non-fiction. The winner receives $25,000. For more details: http://www.thecharlestaylorprize.ca/2015/winner_15.asp
The Jury Citation:
“BEAUTIFULLY OBSERVED AND WRITTEN with great warmth and wit, They Left Us Everything is an absorbing memoir of grief, growth, and decluttering. Plum Johnson must deal not merely with the legacy of her difficult, ill-matched parents, but is handed the burden of disposing of the seemingly endless contents of their 23-room Lake Ontario home, which becomes a character on its own in the telling. The task, which she initially thinks manageable, proves Herculean, far more complex than she’d imagined, involving understanding her past and packing up its contents, both literal and metaphorical. A story of love, loss, and legacy, written with compassion and humour, it subtly evokes T.S. Eliot’s lines: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
Plum Johnson is an award-winning author, artist and entrepreneur living in Toronto. She was the founder of KidsCanada Publishing Corp., publisher of KidsToronto; and co-founder of Help’s Here! resource magazine for seniors & caregivers.
For more information, (rights available World ex: Canada and film/tv) contact Samantha Haywood: samantha@transatlanticagency.com.