Transatlantic is thrilled to share that clients Patricia Miller-Schroeder and Zarqa Nawaz have been shortlisted for the 2023 Saskatchewan Book Awards!
Saskatchewan Book Awards celebrates, promotes and rewards Saskatchewan authors and publishers worthy of recognition through 14 awards, granted on an annual or semi-annual basis.
Saskatchewan Book Awards is the only provincially-focused book award program and a principal ambassador for Saskatchewan’s literary community, which includes more than 300 writers and 75 book publishers. Its solid reputation for celebrating artistic excellence in style is recognized nationally.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the Saskatchewan Book Awards as we celebrate Saskatchewan writers and publishers!
The 2023 Saskatchewan Book Awards Gala will be held at the Saskatoon Inn, in Saskatoon, SK on Thursday, May 4. The event starts at 7:00 pm, with doors opening at 6:00 pm. This incredible evening will feature prizes, delectable desserts at intermission and, of course, awards!
Patricia Miller-Schroeder’s, SISTERS OF THE WOLF (Dundurn Press) has been shortlisted for the Young Adult Literature Award!
About the book:
Can two Ice Age teens separated from their tribes overcome their differences to outwit their pursuer and survive the unforgiving wilds?
The climate is changing, game is disappearing, and two peoples of the Ice Age compete for survival in a savage world. Keena, from a powerful band of Neanderthals, and Shinoni, daughter of a Cro-Magnon shaman, are torn from their families by Haken, a ruthless hunter. The girls dislike each other but soon discover they need one another to survive. Together they escape but are pursued by Haken across an Ice Age landscape rumbling with advancing glaciers and teeming with mighty predators.
As Shinoni and Keena work to overcome disaster at every turn, they are joined by Tewa, a powerful she-wolf who becomes their guardian and spirit guide. Can their growing friendship overcome cultural, racial, and even species differences? Will they ever be able to get back to their families? Only the spirits know.
Patricia Miller-Schroeder is the author of 17 children’s non-fiction books on science, natural history, and the environment, three of which have been nominated for awards in Canada. She wrote and researched the animal biography television series “Wild Lives” (Discovery, SCN) as well as several other educational films. Pat has a master’s degree in biological anthropology, specializing in primate evolution and prehistory, and until her retirement in 2021 was a tenured instructor in the Women and Gender Studies Program at the University of Regina, where she taught on Gender and Science, and Evolution.
Patricia is represented by Amy Tompkins.
And Zarqa Nawaz’s, JAMEELA GREEN RUINS EVERYTHING (Simon and Schuster Canada) has been shortlisted for the Fiction Award!
About the book:
For fans of My Sister, the Serial Killer; Where’d You Go, Bernadette; and the award-winning TV show Killing Eve, a hilarious satire about a disillusioned American Muslim woman who becomes embroiled in a plot to infiltrate an international terrorist organization and, in the process, reconnects with her loved ones and her faith, from Zarqa Nawaz, the creator of the hit CBC series Little Mosque on the Prairie.
Jameela Green has only one wish. To see her memoir on The New York Times bestseller list. When her dream doesn’t come true, she seeks spiritual guidance at her local mosque. New imam and recent immigrant Ibrahim Sultan is appalled by Jameela’s shallowness, but agrees to assist her on one condition: that she perform a good deed.
Jameela reluctantly accepts his terms, kicking off a chain of absurd and unfortunate events. The homeless man they try to help gets recruited by a terrorist group, causing federal authorities to become suspicious of Ibrahim, and suddenly the imam mysteriously disappears.
Certain that the CIA have captured Ibrahim for interrogation via torture, Jameela decides to set off on a one-woman operation to rescue him. Her quixotic quest soon finds her entangled in an international plan targeting the egomaniacal leader of the terrorist organization—a scheme that puts Jameela, and countless others, including her hapless husband and clever but disapproving daughter, at risk.
A hilarious black comedy about the price of success, and a biting look at what has gone wrong with American foreign policy in the Middle East, Jameela Green Ruins Everything is a compulsively readable, yet unexpectedly touching story of one woman’s search for meaning and connection.
Zarqa Nawaz is a Canadian film and television producer, public speaker, journalist, and former broadcaster. She is the author of the memoir Laughing All the Way to the Mosque, which was shortlisted for the Leacock Medal for Humour, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and two Saskatchewan Book Awards. She also created the hit CBC comedy series Little Mosque on the Prairie, the world’s first sitcom about a Muslim community living in the West, and is the creator and star of the forthcoming series Zarqa. Zarqa lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, with her loving but long-suffering family.
Zarqa is represented by Samantha Haywood.
To learn more about the awards, click here: https://www.bookawards.sk.ca/
Congratulations Patricia and Zarqa!