Sarah Polley, Brandi Morin, Saeed Teebi shortlisted for $10K Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize
CBC Books | Posted: April 19, 2023 5:49 PM | Last Updated: April 19, 2023
Actor and filmmaker Sarah Polley, journalist Brandi Morin and writer and lawyer Saeed Teebi are shortlisted for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.
The annual $10,000 prize recognizes the year's best debut books by Canadian writers. This year, winners from three categories will be selected: nonfiction, literary fiction and speculative fiction.
Polley is nominated in the nonfiction category for Run Towards the Danger, an essay collection about learning, changing and what it's like to live in one's body. The memoir reflects on memorable moments in Polley's life and the fallibility of memory.
Polley, a Toronto-born actor, screenwriter and director, has made films like Women Talking and Take This Waltz. Her first feature-length film, Away from Her, was adapted from the Alice Munro story The Bear Came Over the Mountain. It was nominated for the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay.
LISTEN | Sarah Polley in conversation with Eleanor Wachtel:
Morin is also nominated in the nonfiction category for her memoir, Our Voice of Fire. The book recounts Morin's experience as a foster kid, runaway and survivor of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis. Her memoir chronicles her journey to overcome adversity and is a pursuit for justice.
Morin is a Cree/Iroquois/French journalist from Treaty 6 territory in Alberta, covering Indigenous oppression in North America. In 2022, she won two National Native American Journalism awards for her work in Al Jazeera English. She has reported for CBC, the New York Times, Vice, National Geographic and more.
LISTEN | Brandi Morin on The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers:
Teebi's short story collection Her First Palestinian is nominated in the literary fiction category. The collection follows characters who grapple with their experiences as Palestinian immigrants in Canada. Her First Palestinian was initially a short story that made the CBC Short Story Prize shortlist in 2021.
Teebi is a Toronto lawyer and writer. He was born to Palestinian parents in Kuwait, and spent some time living in the U.S. His writing frequently engages the immigrant experience and his Palestinian background.
LISTEN | Saeed Teebi on how the CBC Short Story Prize helped his career:
The three winners of the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prizes will be announced on June 22, 2023. The shortlists were selected by Kobo's team of booksellers.
There is one judge picking a winner from each category: journalist and writer Emily Urquhart will be the nonfiction judge, award-winning novelist CS Richardson will be the literary fiction judge and bestselling author and columnist Robert J. Wiersema will judge the speculative fiction prize.
Here are all the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer finalists.
Nonfiction:
- Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation by Andrew Stobo Sniderman, Douglas Sanderson
- Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory by Sarah Polley
- Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
- For the Love of Learning: A Year in the Life of a School Principal by Kristin Phillips
- Our Voice of Fire: A Memoir of a Warrior Rising by Brandi Morin
- Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery by Harrison Mooney
Literary fiction:
- Wild Fires by Sophie Jai
- The Broken Places by Frances Peck
- We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama
- Her First Palestinian by Saeed Teebi
- Tear by Erica McKeen
- The Island of Forgetting by Jasmine Sealy
Speculative fiction:
- Radium Girl by by Sofi Papamarko
- Satellite Love by Genki Ferguson
- In Veritas by C.J. Lavigne
- The World Collective by Susan Cullen
- The Petting Zoos by K.S. Covert
- Dying Wishes by Anitha Krishnan
Last year's winners were Jesse Wente in the nonfiction category for his memoir Unreconciled, Pik-Shuen Fung in the fiction category for the novel Ghost Forest and Damhnait Monaghan in the romance category for New Girl in Little Cove.