Congratulations are in order for the four Transatlantic authors who are finalists for the 2023 Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society Book Awards for BC!
The Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society Book Awards offer prizes in fiction, non-fiction and poetry in traditional and independent publishing streams. There will be a first-prize winner in each category announced at the Annual Sunshine Coast Art & Words Festival.
SCWES promotes literary arts, provides a forum for local writers to develop their craft within the community, and sponsors events such as the Annual Art & Words Festival, NaNoWriMo, and 100 Years of Writers on the Sunshine Coast, among others.
To learn more, click here: https://www.scwes.ca/
Here are more on the terrific authors and their books!
Included in the Childrens and Young Adult category is:
THE BIG STING by Rachelle Delaney (Tundra)
Eleven-year-old Leo is an “armchair adventurer.” This, according to Dad, means he’d choose adventures in books or video games over real-life experiences. And while Leo hates the label, he can’t argue with it. Unlike his little sister Lizzie, Leo is not a risk-taker.
So when he, Lizzie, Mom and Dad leave the city to visit Grandpa on Heron Island, Leo finds all kinds of dangers to avoid — from the deep, dark ocean to an old barn on the verge of collapse. But nothing on the island is more fearsome than Grandpa himself — Leo has never met anyone so grumpy! According to Mom, Grandpa is still grieving the recent death of his wife, a beekeeper beloved by everyone on the island.
Despite Leo’s best efforts to avoid it, adventure finds him anyway when Grandma’s beehives go missing in the dead of night. Infuriated, Grandpa vows to track down the sticky-fingered thieves himself . . . with risk-averse Leo and danger-loving Lizzie (plus a kitten named Mayhem) in tow.
Rachelle is represented by Amy Tompkins.
In the Fiction category:
THE WHOLE ANIMAL by Corrina Chong (Arsenal Pulp Press)
For fans of Souvankham Thammavongsa, Lynn Coady, and Lisa Moore comes a striking debut collection of short stories that explore bodies both human and animal: our fascination with their strange effluences, growths, and protrusions, and the dangerous ways we play with their power to inflict harm on ourselves and on others.
Throughout The Whole Animal, flawed characters wrestle with the complexities of relationships with partners, parents, children, and friends as they struggle to find identity, belonging, and autonomy. Bodies are divided, often elusive, even grotesque. In “Porcelain Legs,” a pre-teen fixes on the long, thick hair growing from her mother’s eyelid. In “Wolf-Boy Saturday,” a linguist grasps for connection with a young boy whose negligent upbringing has left him unable to speak. In “Butter Buns,” a college student sees his mother in a new light when she takes up bodybuilding.
With strange juxtapositions, beguiling dark humour, and lurid imagery, The Whole Animal illuminates the everyday experiences of loneliness and loss, of self-alienation and self-discovery, that make us human.
Corinna is represented by Samantha Haywood and Marilyn Biderman.
And included in the Non Fiction category is:
DON’T CALL IT A CULT: THE SHOCKING STORY OF KEITH RANIERE AND THE WOMEN OF NXIVM by Sarah Berman (Viking)
They draw you in with the promise of empowerment, self-discovery, women helping women. The more secretive those connections are, the more exclusive you feel. Little did you know, you just joined a cult.
Sex trafficking. Self-help coaching. Forced labour. Mentorship. Multi-level marketing. Gaslighting. Investigative journalist Sarah Berman explores the shocking practices of NXIVM, an organization run by Keith Raniere and his high-profile enablers (Seagram heir Clare Bronfman; Smallville actor Allison Mack; Battlestar Galactica actor Nicki Clyne). In her deeply researched account, Berman unravels how young women seeking creative coaching and networking opportunities found themselves blackmailed, literally branded, near-starved, and enslaved. With the help of the Bronfman fortune Raniere built a wall of silence around these abuses, leveraging the legal system to go after enemies and whistleblowers.
Don’t Call It a Cult shows that these abuses looked very different from the inside, where young women initially received mentorship and protection. Don’t Call It a Cult is a riveting account of NXIVM’s rise to power, its ability to evade prosecution for decades, and the investigation that finally revealed its dark secrets to the world. It explores why so many were drawn to its message of empowerment yet could not recognize its manipulative and harmful leader for what he was–a criminal.
Sarah is represented by Carolyn Forde.
HOLDEN AFTER AND BEFORE: LOVE LETTER FOR A SON LOST TO OVERDOSE by Tara McGuire (Arsenal Pulp Press)
Holden After and Before is a moving meditation on grief: a stunning book that traces Tara McGuire’s excavation and documentation of the life path of her son Holden, a graffiti artist who died of an accidental opioid overdose at the age of twenty-one. Beginning with Holden’s death and leaping through time and space, McGuire employs fact, investigation, memory, fantasy, and even fabrication in her search for understanding not only of her son’s tragic death, but also of his beautiful life. She navigates and writes across the many blank spaces to form a story of discovery and humanity, examining themes of grief, pain, mental illness, trauma, creative expression, identity, and deep, unending love inside just one of the thousands of deaths that have occurred as a result of the opioid crisis.
With poignant honesty and a heart laid bare, Holden After and Before is a beautiful and moving elegy to a son lost to overdose.
Tara is represented by Marilyn Biderman.
Congratulations to all the finalists!