The finalists for the 2017 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction were announced today by Wilfrid Laurier University.
They are (in order of the authors’ surnames:):
- Sonja Larsen’s Red Star Tattoo
- Duncan McCue’s The Shoe Boy and
- Rajiv Surendra’s The Elephants in My Backyard.
I had the pleasure of being one of the judges for the award once again. As I say in the news release, memoir is a popular type of creative nonfiction, and this year, all of our finalists are coming-of-age stories. Although they span a broad range of experiences—from living in communes and counterculture organizations to working on a Cree trapline in northern Quebec to preparing to audition for the role of a lifetime—they are all illuminating and affecting and succeed in taking a singular personal story and making it relatable for a wider audience.
The winner will be announced later this month, with an award ceremony to follow at the university in November.
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