Winnipeg poet and educator Di Brandt has been awarded the 2023 Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction.

The $30,000 award, granted by the Manitoba Arts Council, recognizes artistic excellence and contribution to the development of the arts in the province.

Based in Winnipeg, Brandt is an award-winning poet and critic who has published more than a dozen books. She served as Winnipeg’s poet laureate from 2018 to 2020 and her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Awards and the Griffin Prize.

“Di [Brandt] is a trailblazing writer whose work challenges and confronts the status quo – for women writers, for the arts’ role in climate action, for marginalized voices – and has changed the landscape of the Canadian literary movement forever,” Randy Joynt, executive director of the Manitoba Arts Council, said in a press release.

Nominations are reviewed by a multidisciplinary panel of peers. Previous recipients include artist and curator Daina Warren in 2022, music promoter and mentor Alan Greyeyes in 2020, and performance art duo Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan in 2018.