Congratulations to Diane Schoemperlen whose book THIS IS NOT MY LIFE has been shortlised for the 2017 RBC Taylor Prize!
The RBC Taylor Prize commemorates Charles Taylor’s pursuit of excellence in the field of literary non-fiction. The winner receives $25,000. The winner will be announced on March 6th at a gala held at the Omni King Edward hotel. For more information on the finalists and the award, please visit, Thecharlestaylorprize.ca/2017/finalists
THE JURY CITATION:
“Diane Schoemperlen’s skillful, conversational writing takes the reader on a harrowing journey through hope and happiness to heartbreak. The brutally honest way she describes her love affair with a prisoner serving time for second degree murder is remarkable. In understated but compelling prose she apportions blame for the failed relationship equally, chronicling her own faults as well as those of her lover. This compelling tale of ill-fated love, told with humour as well as humility is also a powerful indictment of the prison system in Canada.”
Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario, DIANE SCHOEMPERLEN has published several collections of short fiction and three novels. Her 1990 story collection, The Man of My Dreams, was shortlisted for both the Governor-General’s Award and the Trillium. Forms of Devotion: Stories and Pictures won the 1998 Governor-General’s Award for English Fiction. Viking Penguin U.S. published In the Language of Love, Forms of Devotion, Our Lady of the Lost and Found, Red Plaid Shirt, and Names of the Dead: An Elegy for the Victims of September 11. Her books have been published internationally in the U.K., Germany, Sweden, Spain, France, Korea, and China. In 2007 she received the Marian Engel Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada and in 2012, she was Writer-in-Residece at Queen’s University.