Sask. authors recognized at book award ceremony
The Saskatchewan Book Awards had more than 300 guests in attendance
Stories are essential, according to Jeanette Lynes.
"We need stories and we need quiet space," she said.
Lynes was one of the authors recognized at the 26th annual Saskatchewan Book Awards, held on April 27 at the Conexus Art Centre in Regina.
Lynes won the Muslims for Peace and Justice Fiction Award for her book Small Things That End the World.
"When we pick up a book we kind of create our own intimate relationship with it, it becomes our friend and I think we need that more than ever," she said.
Harold R. Johnson won the University of Saskatchewan Non-Fiction Award for his book Clifford.
"I'm a writer," Johnson said. "That's not what I do, that's who I am."
His book is described as a memoir with a science fiction twist. Johnson says it is a "thought experiment".
Randy Lundy won the Saskatchewan Arts Board Poetry Award and the Saskatoon Public Library Indigenous peoples' publishing award for his book Blackbird Song.
"A lot of the poems deal with memory," Lundy said, "I start with an image, it turns into a metaphor or maybe it begins as a metaphor and then I just go from there and hopefully end up with a poem."
Other winners include David Krukoff's Hummingbird which won the Regina Public Library book of the year award and A Hero for the Americas by Robert Calder which won the Saskatoon Public Library and the City of Saskatoon book award.
The Rasmussen, Rasmussen and Charowsky Indigenous Peoples' writing award went to Kisiskaciwan by Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber. Crimson by Arthur Slade won the G. Murray and Edna Forbes Young Adult Literature award.
Peau D'ours by Carol Rose Daniels won the Prix du Livre Français, while Thorn Field by James Trettwer won the City of Regina Book Award. Ruth Wellborn won the First Book Award for her book Never Run Noses with a Narwhal and Valerie J. Korinek won the Jennifer Welsh Scholarly Writing Award for her book Prairie Fairies.
Marc Spooner and James McNinch won the SaskBooks Publishing in Education Award for their book Dissident Knowledge In Higher Education and Will Aitken won the Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sport Publishing Award for Antigone Undone.