Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature re-launch with 5 prizes worth $10K
Jane van Koeverden | CBC | Posted: August 29, 2017 1:53 PM | Last Updated: August 29, 2017
The Helen and Stan Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature is back after a one-year hiatus, and it's got a new name, new categories and a significantly larger prize purse.
Now known as the Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature, the prize has five categories, each with a $10,000 first place award. The former Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards, which was administered for 20 years until 2015, had nine categories with a prizes worth $1,500 each.
The new awards have five categories with four categories having a yearly winner and one with a winner every three years. The four yearly categories are fiction, nonfiction, history and young adult/children's literature. Poetry will see one winner every three years.
A few notable changes from the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards to the new Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature:
- Applicants can be both print and digitally published
- Applicants no longer need a predominantly Jewish content, but can rather can be a Jewish author
- Applicants no longer have to be Canadian citizens as long as their work has significant Canadian content
The submission deadline for this year's award is June 3, with the short list announcement in August. This year, the award is taking submissions from works published in 2014 and 2015.
"Our primary goal with the Vine Awards is to showcase great literature and support great writers," says Natalie Kertes, director of literary and theatre programs at the Koffler Centre of the Arts.