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The Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador announces 2014 winners

Caught by Lisa Moore (Anansi)

Lisa Moore has been named winner of the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador fiction award for her 2013 novel Caught (House of Anansi Press), a nominee for last year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize and Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Actor and director Andy Jones was awarded the Bruneau Family Children’s/Young Adult Literature Award for his 2012 picture book Jack and Mary in the Land of Thievesillustrated by Darka Erdelji (Running the Goat Books & Broadsides). Each author received $1,500 in prize money.

In a jury citation, judges Eleanor Dawson, Jamie Fitzpatrick, and Trudy Morgan-Cole write, “It’s Lisa Moore’s mastery of language that sets [Caught] apart. Strong characters and great writing make this book a winner.”

A separate jury for the children’s/YA award comprised Tim Borlase, Joan Clark, and Sheree Fitch. A jury citation says,“The bardic, original voice of Andy Jones in another of his word-perfect Jack tales gives us a world away from now, a world that celebrates Newfoundland’s sailing history, song, and the art of storytelling itself.”

Two finalists in both award categories received $500 each. For the fiction prize, Ed Kavanaugh was nominated for Strays, published by Killick Press in 2013, and Russell Wangersky was nominated for his 2012 story collection, Whirl Away (Thomas Allen Publishers). The finalists for the children’s/YA award are Tom Dawe for The Wonderful Dogfish Racket, illustrated by C. Anne MacLeod and published in 2013 by Pennywell Books, and William Pryse-Phillips for Free Flight, also illustrated by MacLeod and published in 2012 by FriesenPress.

Books considered for the Alliance’s awards must be released in the two previous years. Fiction and children’s/YA literature are recognized in even-numbered years, and, in odd-numbered years, works of non-fiction and poetry are recognized.