Eric Dupont was one of five authors — the others being Esi Edugyan, Patrick deWitt, Thea Lim and Sheila Heti — nominated for the $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2018.

The Montreal author of Songs for the Cold of Heart gathered with his fellow finalists on stage at Calgary's Wordfest for a special Scotiabank Giller Prize panel, hosted by The Next Chapter's Shelagh Rogers.

Edugyan won the 2018 prize for her novel Washington Black. But just being a finalist was enough to change Dupont's career.

"To learn I was on the shortlist was, in a word, thrilling. I'm still stunned. I initially found out about it by a phone call from my translator Peter McCambridge. I was sleeping at the time. I was wondering why he was calling me so early and why he was talking so fast given that he's a very soft-spoken person. And in the salad of words that he was belching out, I heard the word Giller — and that's how I found out!"

"I wrote Songs for the Cold of Heart because I come from a family of storytellers and I don't have my own children to tell stories to. When I was writing the book I was thinking a lot about my nieces and nephews. I have a story to tell and the need to play the role of the storyteller."