VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Shortlist Announced
—SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED—
We are delighted to announce the finalists for the Inaugural Betsy Warland Between Genres Award. Given to an exceptional title of Canadian literature published in 2021 that celebrates the hybrid and unclassifiable through innovation in genre, the winner will be announced at a ceremony at Vancouver Writers Fest on Sunday, October 24, 2021, 2pm-4pm PST, and presented $500 by judge Wayde Compton with special guest of honour Betsy Warland in attendance. Two Honourable Mentions will also be awarded.
Our congratulations and appreciation to all the authors whose works were submitted. The innovation and quality of the submissions was truly inspiring. We hope this award will encourage publishers and authors in creating future hybrid works
In alphabetical order, the finalists are:
Jordan Abel, NISHGA, Penguin Random House
Lindsay B.-e., The Cyborg Anthology, Brick Books
Fanen Chiahemen, Never Make a Sound: A Memoir, The Awakened Press
About the Award:
Administered and sponsored by Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, The VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award recognizes titles that combine two or more genres, such as memoir and literary criticism, fiction and non-fiction, or memoir and poetry.
Creative nonfiction writer, poet, essayist, teacher, manuscript consultant, and editor Betsy Warland’s 14 books are not easily classified or categorized in one genre, yet they have contributed greatly to Canadian literary history and continue to influence emerging authors. Many beloved books do not find a comfortable place on a bookshelf or on a prize list because they are innovative in terms of form, creating/inviting/forcing new ways of being read. Named in honour of Betsy Warland, this award celebrates work that disrupts convention about what a book should be, how it should read, what it should sound like, what subject matter is acceptable.
Inaugural judge Wayde Compton has written five books and has edited two literary anthologies. His collection of short stories, The Outer Harbour, won the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2015 and he won a National Magazine Award for Fiction in 2011. His work has been a finalist for two other City of Vancouver Book Awards as well as the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. In 2006 Compton co-founded Commodore Books, western Canada’s first Black Canadian literary press. Compton has been writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University, Green College at the University of British Columbia, and the Vancouver Public Library. From 2012-18, he administrated the Creative Writing Program in Continuing Studies at SFU, including the award-winning Writer’s Studio. His latest book, The Blue Road, a fantasy graphic novel for young adults, illustrated by April dela Noche Milne, was called a “touching allegory of the unexpected and burdensome trials of migration” in a starred Kirkus review. Compton is currently the chair of Creative Writing at Douglas College in New Westminster, BC.
Please join us at the Vancouver Writers Fest on Sunday, October 24, 2021 at the Blending Genres with Hiromi Goto, Harold R. Johnson, and Renée Sarojini Saklikar event moderated by Rachel Rose. At the end of this event, VMI directors Elee Kraljii Gardiner and Rachel Rose will introduce the award and invite Wayde Compton to announce the winner.
We warmly welcome all VMI alumni and mentees to attend.