Yasuko Thanh, Bill Gaston and Robyn Doolittle to judge 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize
Dionne Codrington | | Posted: January 27, 2020 6:16 PM | Last Updated: January 28, 2020
Yasuko Thanh, Bill Gaston and Robyn Doolittle will judge the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
The CBC Nonfiction Prize recognizes original, unpublished works of nonfiction. The winning author will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their work published on CBC Books.
Four finalists will win $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.
The deadline to submit is Feb. 29, 2020. The finalists will be announced in the fall. If you're interested, you can enter here.
Thanh is the author of Mistakes to Run With, a memoir about how she went from living on the street to becoming an award-winning writer. She is also the author of the historical novel Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains, which won the 2016 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and was nominated for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award.
Gaston is a fiction writer and memoirist. He has won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, a National Magazine Award, a ReLit Award and been shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award and Giller Prize. In 2003, he received the Timothy Findley Award, which recognizes a mid-career author for their entire body of work. His latest book, the memoir Just Let Me Look at You was shortlisted for the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize. He won the CBC Short Story Prize in 1998.
Doolittle is a Globe and Mail investigative journalist. Her reporting on Mayor Rob Ford for the Toronto Star won the Michener Award for public service journalism. Her bestselling book on the topic, Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story, won the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. Her Unfounded series investigated how police services handle sexual assault cases. In 2017, she was named journalist of the year by the National Newspaper Awards. Her latest book, Had It Coming, looks at how attitudes around sexual harassment and assault are changing in the #MeToo era. Had It Coming is currently on the 2020 RBC Taylor Prize shortlist.
The 2019 CBC Nonfiction Prize winner was Jenny Boychuk for Slow Violence.
The CBC Literary Prizes have been supporting and celebrating Canadian writers since 1979.
Other past CBC Literary Prize winners include Michael Winter, Frances Itani, Carol Shields and Michael Ondaatje.