Hi everyone! Taking a break from authors this week to make it local. We talk with Dave Kuruc, owner of King West Books, about…well, books, among other things!
Also: the 26th Annual Hamilton Arts Council Literary Awards were held this week, hosted by CBC personality Jeff Goodes. It was the culmination of much effort on the part of the HAC as well as the Literary Committee, of which I am privileged to be a part. I even got to step in on behalf of absent sponsor PV&V Insurance and present this year’s Kerry Schooley Award.
The Schooley award goes to the book that best encapsulates the spirit of Hamilton. This year’s winner was author and poet John Terpstra. It’s possible a collective “oof” was heard at City Hall over the news, as his winning title is Daylighting Chedoke, a work that “weaves the history of the creek with the lyrical observations of nature and humankind’s connections to nature that he is celebrated for, while also examining the reality of our contaminated waterways.” As he pointed out at the podium, it was a timely win, though perhaps not for the greatest reasons, given this is the year of Sewergate. If you don’t know what that means, read this and weep.
(You can listen to John and I chat about the book here!)
Darrell Epp won the poetry award for his collection Sinner’s Dance, the fiction award went to Sylvia McNicoll for her book Body Swap, and the non-fiction award went to legendary playwright Sky Gilbert for small things: a random selection of anti-essays.
Hope you dig this week’s show.