The Vancouver Public Library and BC BookWorld are pleased to present the 16th George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award for an outstanding literary career in British Columbia to acclaimed writer Anne Cameron. Her name will be inscribed onto a commemorative plaque in the Writer’s Walk at Vancouver’s Library Square. Anne Cameron will read from her work and speak about her writing career on Thursday, July 29 from 7-9pm at the Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. The event will be held in the Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye Room, Lower Level. Admission is free but seating is limited.

The Writers’ Union of Canada and John Gleed are pleased to announce that Sarah Roberts is the recipient of the $10,000 DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD for Wax Boats (Caitlin Press), judged the best first English-language collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in 2009.

 Judges Ivan E. Coyote, Mary Soderstrom, and David Bezmozgis said “Sarah Roberts's Wax Boats is a truly remarkable collection. Roberts exhibits tremendous versatility, writing movingly and convincingly in every conceivable voice--of the men and women, girls and boys, natives and whites who inhabit her fictional Smokecrest Island. There are stories here of loss and renewal, of strange adventures, and of acts of profound kindness. The prose is clear and evocative and flawless. Roberts is a truly gifted storyteller and Wax Boats is a mature and ambitious work of literature. It is a Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town for the modern age.” Congratulations, Sarah!

The winner of the 2010 Griffin Prize for poetry has taken time to credit the Harbour Publishing publication that got her started as a published writer. Karen Solie was announced June 2 as winner of the $65,000 poetry prize, one of the richest in the world. According to a report today in the National Post, "She burst onto the Canadian poetry scene in 1995, when her work appeared in Breathing Fire: Canada's New Poets, edited by Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane. 'That was my first publication.' she told the National Post last month, 'I thought there had to be some luck involved.'" Crozier and Lane followed the success of Breathing Fire with Breathing Fire 2, published by Nightwood in 2004.