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