Sheila Watt-Cloutier

Wilfrid Laurier University has announced the finalists for this year’s Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-fiction‚ recognizing authors of a first or second non-fiction book with a Canadian connection or setting:

• Lori Shenher‚ the Vancouver detective who led the investigation of serial killer Robert Pickton‚ for her 2015 memoir‚ That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away (Greystone Books).
• Journalist Ann Walmsley for The Prison Book Club (Penguin Canada)‚ which documents her experience co-running a book club in two Ontario men’s prisons and the positive effect such clubs can have on inmates.
• Inuit author and environmental advocate Sheila Watt-Cloutier for The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet‚ her 2016 Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize–shortlisted title that is part memoir‚ part climate-change-focused political manifesto.

This year is the 25th anniversary of the $10,000 award. The winner will be revealed later this month‚ and honoured at an award presentation in early November. The prize’s anniversary will also be celebrated with a number events at the university’s campuses in Waterloo and Brantford on Nov. 3 and 4.