Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature

God of Missed Connections has been shortlisted for the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. The other shortlisted works are Where the Blood Mixes by Kevin Loring and A Thousand Dreams by Larry Campbell, Neil Boyd, and Lori Culbert.

THE GEORGE RYGA AWARD

FOR SOCIAL AWARENESS IN LITERATURE

Sponsored by The George Ryga Society, BC Bookworld, CBC Radio (Kelowna) and Okanagan College, this annual literary prize is awarded to a BC writer who has achieved an outstanding degree of social awareness in a new book. Excerpts are aired on CBC Radio One's Daybreak Program. The award is announced in conjunction with George Ryga Week in November . Winners receive a full-page advertisement in BC BookWorld and a commemorative sculpture by Reg Kienast.

The criteria for the award are: 1. social awareness - in keeping with Alberta-born George Ryga's status as a marginalized Ukrainian Canadian who was deeply concerned with justice, the judges will select an outstanding work of both literary and social value that opens up discussion of social and cultural issues. 2. bc writer - a writer who has lived in BC for three of the last five years. 3. book - a full-length book (not a chapbook) published during the preceding calendar year.

PREVIOUS AWARD WINNERS

2004 - Maggie De Vries, Missing Sarah
Adjudicator: Craig McLuckie, Chair, English, Okanagan College
2005 - Robert Hunter, The Greenpeace to Amchitka: An Environmental Odyssey
Adjudicator: Ross Tyner, Chair, Library, Okanagan College
2006 - Leslie Robertson and Dara Culhane, In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver
Adjudicator: Myrna Kostash
2007 - Harold Rhenisch, The Wolves at Evelyn
Adjudicator, Sharon Josephson, Chair, Communications, Okanagan College
2008 - Leilah Nadir, The Orange Trees of Baghdad
Adjudicator: Ivan Townshend, Chair, Geography, University of Lethbridge
2009 - Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo
Adjudicator: Robert MacDonald, Publisher in Residence, Okanagan College

What They say

“Bachinsky's work, with its myriad of influences ranging from Eliot...to Lisa Robertson, is able to rise above the boring drone of the avant-garde-versus-traditional debates. Her work can straddle both sides: formal and experimental, personal and mathematical, with a keen ear for the erotically ridiculous.”

~ Zoe Whittall, Globe and Mail

“Bachinsky has won deserved admiration for her work, full of guts and verve, spunk and nerve.…straight-shooting, straight-talking…Bachinsky’s third poetry collection [has] that same rough beauty, sinuous toughness, of make-do carpentry that works.”

~ George Elliott Clarke, Halifax Chronicle/Herald

“God of Missed Connections is a formidable work from this young poet: a considered and important contribution to the quintessential dialogue on Canada’s fractured collective history.”

~ Deanne Beattie, Vancouver Review

“…enviably good.”

~ Mark Callanan, Quill & Quire

“…one of those rare poets capable of negotiating poetic forms with rigour and testing their limits, while never losing sight of the strange, dark music of what it means to be human.”

~ Jeanette Lynes, The Globe and Mail

“a poet…with an ear to the ground of 21st century culture. [Her work] grips you with yearning from the first verse to the last…"

~ Belinda Bruce, Vancouver Review

“[Bachinsky] doesn’t let any sign pass without spinning out possible signifiers. And she sees the signs everywhere."

~ Jacqueline Turner, The Georgia Straight

“A wonderful, wonderful poet.”

~ Keith Maillard, author of Gloria & Two Strand River

“One of the significant, exciting new poets to follow…one whose fine sense of form is equaled by a dedication to using the full spectrum of tone, style, and content.”

~ Todd Swift, Eyewear

“A major influence…”

~ John K. Samson, The Weakerthans

“A…poet concerned with tradition, but possessing an experimental impulse that gives her work a countercultural thrust.”

~ Stuart Cole, Quill and Quire

“An accomplished poet who thinks and feels in the forms she employs.”-

~ Malcolm Woodland, University of Toronto Quarterly.

“She says what she wants to say confidently and skillfully. I respect this kind of honesty…”

~ Alex Boyd, The Good Reports

“Bachinsky’s willingness to range fearlessly through history sets her writing apart...[she] should be lauded for raising big questions. We should also applaud her sheer moxie.”

~ Jeanette Lynes, The Fieldstone Review, University of Saskatchewan

Elizabeth Bachinsky

Friday, August 27, 2010

Curio Reviewed at Canadian Literature

Wednesday, August 18, 2010