Alumni News and Awards

If you are literary arts program alumni and you are about to publish, have a recent publication, or are a literary prize recipient, please tell us about your success by emailing us. We would love to hear from you!

Congratulations to our alumni and faculty who have recently published or have won prizes for their work.

Latest News

Greg Hollingshead, Writing Studio program director, has won the 2007 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award.

Faculty members Dionne Brand, Wayne Johnston, and Ken Babstock were nominated for the Trillium Book Awards, the Ontario book prize. More

Don McKay, Writing Studio associate director, has been shortlisted for 2007 Griffin Poetry Prize for Strike/Slip (McLelland & Stewart). More

John Steffler, an alumnus of the 1998 Writing Studio, has been named Canada’s new poet laureate. More.

Congratulations to 2002 Literary Journalism alumna Faith Adiele who won the Beyond Margins Award for Best Biography/Memoir of 2005 from PEN. Her book, Meeting Faith:
An Inward Odysey (W.W. Norton) was shortlisted for Best American Essays 2005 and PBS made an acclaimed documentary on her memoir-in-progress.

Congratulations to 1994 Writing Studio alumna Sylvia Legris, winner of the 2006 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Congratulations to Neil McKinnon, alumnus of the 2003 Writing with Style program, on the imminent publication of his collection of 20 short stories entitled Tuckahoe Slidebottle which is being published by Thistledown Press and will be released in August, 2006.

Wired Writing Studio alumnus (2002) Barbara Stowe’s fictional feature length screenplay Love and Greenpeace, which was in development with CBC for several years, has been purchased by Principia Productions.

Congratulations to Joseph Boyden who won the Writers’ Trust Award for his novel Three Day Road. Boyden was an invited writer to the 2005 Banff International Literary Translation Centre residency working with his French and Dutch translators. He also was a guest speaker of the 2005 WordFest held at The Banff Centre.

Congratulations to two alumna for their wins at the 2006 CBC Literary Award winners: Alison Pick (Wired Writing Studio 2001, 2002, Writing Studio 2003) First Prize - English Poetry for The Mind's Eye, and Kim Echlin (Literary Journalism 1997, 1999, 2000, BILTC 2005) First Prize - English Creative Nonfiction for I, Witness.

Michele Adams, alumni of the Writing Studio, won the Fiddlehead fiction contest for the story, ”Infinite Speed.” Adams’s book of short stories, Bright Objects of Desire, was published by Biblioasis Press.

Lisa Moore’s Alligator has been named best book for the Caribbean and Canada region, making it a finalist for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

Roo Borson (Writing Studio faculty 1998, 2001, 2003) was the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize Canadian award winner for Short Journey Upriver Towards Oishida.

Congratulations to Cecil Castellucci, alumni of the Writing With Style program, on her new novel, The Queen of Cool, Candlewick Press.

Don McKay, Writing Studio associate director for poetry, was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize for Camber.

David Bergen (2004 Writing Studio faculty) won the 2005 Giller Prize for his novel The Time In Between. Congratulations also to fellow nominees Joan Barfoot (2004 Writing Studio faculty) for Luck, Camilla Gibb (2002 Cultural Journalism alumna) for Sweetness in the Belly, and Lisa Moore (1994 Writing Studio alumna and 2004 Writing With the Style faculty) for Alligator.

Pamela Porter (2004 Cultural Journalism Summit alumna) is the 2005 Governor General’s Literary Award winner in the Children’s Literature category for The Crazy Man. Fellow GG award nominees included Joseph Boyden (BILTC 2005 invited guest writer), Charlotte Gill (2001 Wired Writing and 2005 CJ Writer’s Summit alumna), Barry Dempster (2000, 2002-2004 Writing Studio faculty), Erin Mouré (1995 faculty and 1973 alumna), Olive Senior (1997 Writing Studio faculty), Ted Bishop (2004, 2005 alumni), Barbara Nickel (1994 Writing Studio alumna), Wayne Grady (1986 faculty), and David Homel (2001 Literary Translation).

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Caroline Adderson, alumnus of the Writing Studio, Leighton artist, and Wired Writing faculty, won the CBC Literary Award Second Prize for short story for “Falling.”

Shawna Singh Baldwin was shortlisted for the 2004 Giller Prize and the 2005 Hutch Crossword Award in India for The Tiger Claw, which she worked on in Banff while participating in the 2002 Writing Studio.

Ronna Bloom, 1994 Writing Studio alumna, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award for her poetry collection, Public Works (Pedlar Press, 2004).

Roo Borson, Writing Studio faculty, won the 2004 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.

Wayson Choy, faculty for 2005 Writing with Style, won the prestigious 2004 Trillium Award for his novel All That Matters. He was also shortlisted for the 2004 Giller Prize for the same novel.

Larry Gasper, Writing Studio alumnus, won the Saskatchewan Book Awards prize for best fiction book for his novel Princes in Waiting (Coteau Books).

Congratulations to Writing Studio participant Lorri Nielsen Glenn who has been been appointed the new Halifax Regional Municipality Poet Laureate.

Maureen Scott Harris, 1998 Writing Studio alumna, won the prestigious 2004 Trillium Book Award for Drowning Lessons.

Bedlam, the third novel by Greg Hollingshead, director of Writing Studio and programming for Literary Arts, was a finalist for the following prestigious prizes: City of Edmonton Book Prize, the Grant MacEwan Author Award, and the Georges Bugnet Award for Novel.

Frances Itani, faculty member of the 1990 Writing Studio Program and past Leighton Studio artist, was a 2005 nominee for one of the most prestigious and lucrative literary honours, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for her novel, Deafening.

Alison Pick’s novel The Sweet Edge, which she began at the Wired Studio in 2002, was a Globe and Mail Top 100 book of 2005.

David Adams Richards, faculty for the 1988 and ’89 Writing Studio programs, won the Timothy Findley Award for an outstanding body of work produced by a male writer.

Robert J. Sawyer, Writing With Style faculty, won Spain’s top science-fiction award, the Premio UPC de Ciencia Ficción, for a third time for his story “Identity Theft.”

Jaspreet Singh, alumnus of the Wired Writing and Writing Studio programs, won the McAuslan First Book Award from the Quebec Writers’ Federation for his book of short stories Seventeen Tomatoes: Tales from Kashmir (Véhicule Press).

Anne Simpson, writing faculty, was the 2004 Griffin Poetry Prize winner.

Fred Stenson, director of the Wired Writing Studio, was awarded his second Grant MacEwan Author’s Award, for his novel Lightning.

Miriam Toews, Writing With Style faculty, won the 2004 Governor General’s Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2004 Giller Prize.

Dianne Warren, faculty for the 2002 Writing With Style program and upcoming faculty for Wired Writing 2005, won the 2004 Marian Engel Award for outstanding female writer in mid-career.

Michael Winter, 1993 Writing Studio alumnus and 2005 faculty, won the CBC Literary Award First Prize for his short story “The Point David Made Earlier.”

Ange Zhang, Banff Centre theatre arts student from 1989 to 1991, faculty for theatre in 1995, as well as Banff Wordfest author in 2004, was awarded the 2005 Bologna Ragazzi Award for his non-fiction, Governor General’s Award short-listed book, Red Land Yellow River: a story from the Cultural Revolution. Zhang’s book is the second Canadian book ever to win this prestigious award.

Jan Zwicky, writing faculty, was shortlisted for two 2004 Governor General’s Awards.

Thank you to everyone who has shared their alumni success story with us!

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