Joshua Whitehead, Ben Ladouceur & Trish Salah named finalists for LGBTQ emerging writers prize
Three poets have been nominated for the Writers' Trust of Canada's $4,000 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ emerging writers.
This annual award is given to a promising writer who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer.
Joshua Whitehead, a finalist from Peguis First Nation in Manitoba, has written and published two books: a poetry collection called full-metal indigiqueer and a novel titled Johnny Appleseed. His poem mihkokwaniy won Historica Canada's Aboriginal Arts and Stories contest.
Finalist Trish Salah from Kingston, Ont., is a professor of gender studies at Queen's University and author of two poetry collections. Her book Wanting In Arabic won the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for best transgender fiction.
Ottawa-based Ben Ladouceur rounds out the list of finalists. His first poetry collection Otter was published in 2015 and received the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.
The jury, composed of Ali Blythe, Greg Kearney and Shannon Webb-Campbell, selected the finalists. The winner will be announced on June 16, 2018, at the Canadian Writers' Summit in Toronto.