The Porcupine's Quill

The very human story of a young refugee striving to improve his life in a world that seems at every turn to conspire against him. He is not always likeable, but his struggles have a universal quality that readers can recognize.

2009—Thomas H Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize,
Shortlisted

2009—Margaret & John Savage First Book Award,
Winner

2009—Danuta Gleed Literary Award,
Runner-up

2009—IPPY,
Runner-up

2009—ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year,
Shortlisted

2009—ReLit Award,
Shortlisted

The Great Lakes serve as the setting for a powerful story about the men and women who labour upon them. Sheree-Lee Olson’s protagonist, Kate, belying her contemporary suburban origins and current career as an art student, is equal to the challenge of life aboard the lakers. Her adventures on the lakes culminate in an unanticipated and shocking climax.

2009—IPPY,
Runner-up

2009—ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year,
Shortlisted

2009—ReLit Award,
Long-listed

J. T. McLaughlin is a Professor of Economics who appears blessed until his wife of twenty-four years suddenly ups and leaves him. J. T. becomes despondent. At this point Zinger, a high-school chum and journalist, bursts upon the scene. Amidst the machinations of academia, passionate encounters at Catholic spas, and slanderous accusations of sexist, racist and homophobic behaviour, MacLeod creates an exhilarating romp through the pressing issues of the day.

2009—Leacock Medal,
Shortlisted

Before the Canadian Government ended the jet interceptor project Urquhart, then a young artist, was consumed by a wish to design a hood ornament for the new fighter aircraft. He was hard to console when he first learned that the plane would not have a hood and his melancholy deepened when the entire project was stopped.

Hypnosis has brought Urquhart to an new understanding that the Arrow calamity drove him from the medium of titanium alloys and back into the embrace of your more basic wood.

2009—ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year,
Shortlisted

2009—Alcuin Award for Excellence in Book Design,
Runner-up

Frank Newfeld, ‘type-cast’ (as it were) as a book designer-cum-illustrator, as well as a designer of printed matter for art galleries, gives us a fascinating memoir both from the standpoint of human interest and from the standpoint of his involvement in the book trade -- in publishing, editing, illustration, and design. Drawing on Type is historically valuable in providing a portrait of publishing in Canada in its formative decades.

Mr Newfeld was, for many years, Vice-President (Publishing) at McClelland & Stewart.

2009—ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year,
Runner-up

[ Lipogram: a composition from which the writer rejects all words that contain a certain letter or letters. ]

JonArno Lawson, addict of wordplay and lover of children’s poetry, has created a collection of lipograms written for children. The idea behind A Voweller’s Bestiary is a simple one: an alphabet book based on vowel combinations, rather than on initial letters. This is vowel language applied to the animal kingdom.

2008—IPPY Moonbeam Award,
Shortlisted

2009—ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year,
Shortlisted

2009—The Lion and the Unicorn Award,
Winner

P. K. Page needs no introduction. This is a poet who writes in many genres and on an infinite number of subjects. The source of her poetry is always love -- whether in vivid portraits of her inner and outer landscapes; startling insights into the past, the present, the future; illumination of some tiny detail of ordinary life; or admonishments for our neglect of the earth and of each other. Page is an alchemist who turns language into pure gold, a magician who dazzles with sleight of mind. The Essential P. K. Page is perceptive, elegant, romantic (yet never sentimental), sometimes downright funny, wholly conscious.

2009—Alcuin Award for Excellence in Book Design,
Commended

An elegant little alphabet book for adults using original wood engravings of flowers to represent each of the twenty-six letters. Uniform in format with the bestselling Wood, Ink & Paper (Porcupine’s Quill, 1980).

2009—Alcuin Award for Excellence in Book Design,
Commended

Carpenter’s voice captures both the bleakness and the unexpected joys of life. Filled with moments of high humour but grounded by the sense of defeat and rejection that we all face, this novel provides an insight into the human condition, its foibles, its delights and its lunacy.

2009—ReLit Award,
Long-listed

2009—Saskatchewan Book Award (Fiction),
Shortlisted

2009—Saskatchewan Book Award (Saskatoon),
Winner

A collection of poems about love and how it touches all aspects of our lives. Never flinching from truth, Edward Carson demonstrates all the brutal honesties and shapes of his subject. Love, too, comes in a multitude of shapes which we learn to sometimes embrace, and sometimes repel.

2009—ReLit Award,
Long-listed