Jesse Thistle among winners of 2020 High Plains Book Awards for memoir From the Ashes
CBC Books | | Posted: October 27, 2020 4:19 PM | Last Updated: October 27, 2020
Métis-Cree author Jesse Thistle won the 2020 High Plains Book Award for Indigenous writer for his memoir From the Ashes.
Founded in 2006, the High Plains Book Awards recognize excellent writing from the High Plains region in North America. The award program recognizes books in 12 categories, including fiction, nonfiction, photography and children's books.
The High Plains are comprised of the Canadian provinces Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and the United States of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.
In From the Ashes, Thistle combines poetry and memoir to chronicle his intimate journey of overcoming addiction and homelessness to become a decorated academic.
From the Ashes was defended by George Canyon on Canada Reads 2020. According to BookNet Canada, it is the #1 bestselling Canadian print book of 2020 so far.
Thistle was one of four Canadian winners.
Alberta journalist Sue Farrell Holler won the young adult category for Cold White Sun.
Cold White Sun is the story of a young Ethiopian boy named Tesfaye whose family sends him away when violence breaks out and he must make a new home in Canada, alone. The book was also a finalist for the 2019 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text.
Edmonton writer Katherine Koller won the short story category for her collection Winning Chance, which explores the role of chance in our lives.
Timothy Long and Julia Krueger won the art and photography category for Victor Cicansky: The Gardener's Universe/L'Univers d'un Jardinier.
The Gardener's Universe was an exhibit of more than 100 of Regina artist Victor Cicansky's ceramic and bronze sculptures, which were inspired by his relationship to his backyard.
Long and Krueger curated the exhibit and edited the book.
The complete list of winners is:
- Art & photography: Victor Cicansky: The Gardener's Universe/L'Univers d'un Jardinier, edited by Timothy Long and Julia Krueger
- Children's book: Howl: A New Look at the Big Bad Wolf by Ted Rechlin
- Creative nonfiction: Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam Houston
- Fiction: Fall Back Down When I Die by Joe Wilkins
- First book: Reckless Steps Toward Sanity: A Memoir by Judith Sara Gelt
- Indigenous writer: From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
- Medicine & science: Six Hundred Generations: an Archaeological History of Montana by Carl M. Davis
- Nonfiction: Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power by Pekka Hamalainen
- Poetry: Wilderness//Kingdom by Jory Mickelson
- Short stories: Winning Chance by Katherine Koller
- Woman writer: River People by Margaret Lukas
- Young adult: Cold White Sun by Sue Farrell Holler
- Big Sky Award: Voices of Yellowstone's Capstone, edited by Traute N. Parrie and Jesse A. Logan