Two students in the School of Fine Art and Music have been chosen as 2021 recipients of major awards. Emmanuel Osahor has won the $30,000 Joseph Plaskett Postgraduate Award in Painting and Ella Gonzales received the $10,000 second-prize Nancy Petry Award. Both were enrolled in U of G’s master of fine art in studio art program.

DANIEL STOLFI
The Comedian vs Cancer

Daniel Stolfi, BA ’05, details his cancer treatment in this moving and comedic memoir. Diagnosed at age 25, he created an award-winning, one-person stage play called Cancer Can’t Dance Like This. He performed the play for 10 years across North America, raising more than $100,000 for charities. A portion of proceeds from his book sales will benefit Young Adult Cancer Canada.

HEJSA CHRISTENSEN
Stealing John Hancock

Hejsa Christensen, BA ’98, will release this debut thriller later in 2022. She writes in partnership with her mother, Alie Christensen, as H&A Christensen. Based in Ontario, the mother-daughter duo are staff writers for several film production companies.

DAVID GIULIANO
The Undertaking of Billy Buffone

An award-winning memoirist and writer of non-fiction, David Giuliano, BA ’82, M.Sc. ’93, has published his first novel, The Undertaking of Billy Buffone. Set in an isolated community in northern Ontario, the novel examines lives intertwined in the search for redemption amid the uncovering of longburied truths.

 

MICHAEL BARCLAY
Hearts on Fire: Six Years That Changed Canadian Music 2000-2005

Michael Barclay, BA ’93, explores a seminal period in Canadian music with stories of more than 40 diverse artists as a follow-up to his earlier volume, Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance, 1985-1995.

 

JUDITH NASBY

The Making of a Museum

This volume published in 2021 by Judith Nasby, the founding director and curator of the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, relates the story of the gallery from its beginnings in U of G hallways to its current status as the Art Gallery of Guelph. Nasby discusses the development of the museum’s collection, including Inuit drawings, Indigenous beadwork, historical European etchings and works by Canadian silversmiths.

 

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JERRY BOUMA
The Villanova Track Story: Touching Greatness, Together Forever

How a small private university in the eastern United States became a world middledistance track and field power is related in this book by Jerry Bouma, M.Sc. (Agr.) ’77. A former Canadian junior champion, in 1970 he became the first Canadian to secure an athletics scholarship to Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Later at U of G, he was ranked No. 1 in Canada for the 1,000 metres.

DR. ALISON SEELY
The Hex Chromosome

Dr. Alison Seely, M.Sc. ’91, DVM ’95, published her second novel, The Hex Chromosome, in 2021. Her first novel, One Bone at a Time: Tales of an Adventurous Animal Chiropractor, was published in 2019.

DEEPA RAJAGOPALAN, an MFA candidate in creative writing, has won the 2021 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award for her short story Peacocks of Instagram. Her submission was selected from more than 130 entries by a jury of PEN Canada members. The New Voices award supports new Canadian writers of short stories, creative non-fiction, journalism and poetry, and provides $3,000 and mentorship from a Canadian author.

KAREN CARUANA (née Steinbeck), BA ’89, is a translator working from French and German into English. She is currently translating Wounded Land: Cree and Ojibwe Talk About Their Land, a history of Indigenous people in northern Ontario.

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Madhur Anand

2020 Governor General’s Literary Award

Dr. Madhur Anand, a professor in the School of Environmental Sciences, has won this year’s Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction.
She won for This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart: A Memoir of Halves. The experimental memoir focuses on immigration and storytelling through generations and is rooted in the themes of partition and divide.

Dr. Thomas King, College of Arts professor emeritus, was nominated for a Governor General’s fiction award for Indians on Vacation.

Jael Richardson

Gutter Child

Jael Richardson, a 2010 graduate of U of G’s MFA in creative writing program and a 2003 BA alumna, released her first novel, Gutter Child, early this year. The book was shortlisted for the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Richardson is the founder and director of the popular Festival of Literary Diversity, held online this year in early May.

SALLY FRATER

Oakville Galleries

U of G alumna Sally Frater was named executive director of Oakville Galleries in Oakville, Ont., in March. She earned a BA in studio art in 1999 from U of G and an MA in contemporary art from the University of Manchester. Before joining Oakville Galleries, she was curator of contemporary art at the Art Gallery of Guelph and artistic director of Centre[3] for Artistic and Social Practice in Hamilton.

CANISIA LUBRIN /
DIONNE BRAND

Windham-Campbell Prize

University of Guelph alumna Canisia Lubrin and her mentor, U of G professor Dionne Brand, were among eight winners worldwide of the 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize for outstanding international writers of fiction, non-fiction, drama and poetry.

A professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies, Brand was recognized in the fiction category for her novel Theory, which won the 2019 Toronto Book Award.

Lubrin, a 2015 graduate of U of G’s MFA creative writing program, was honoured for her poetry collections, Voodoo Hypothesis and The Dyzgraphxst.

SOUVANKHAM THAMMAVONGSA /
SHANI MOOTOO

2020 Giller Prize

Two writers and thesis advisers in the creative writing program in the College of Arts had outstanding showings in the 2020 ScotiaBank Giller Prize, one of Canada’s most prestigious literary awards.

Souvankham Thammavongsa won the $100,000 literary price for her short-story collection How to Pronounce Knife, her first work of fiction. Shani Mootoo, a 2011 MA grad in English and drama from U of G, was one of four other finalists for her novel Polar Vortex.

BARDIA SINAEE

Intruder

Bardia Sinaee enrolled in U of G’s MFA in creative writing program in 2015, right around the time he was diagnosed with cancer. His studies helped him write through his treatment. His inaugural poetry collection, Intruder, published in 2020 by House of Anansi Press, explores the theme of encroachment, whether from cancer, COVID-19 or the internet. He completed the book during the pandemic.

AZADEH ELMIZADEH

Painting Award

Painter Azadeh Elmizadeh, a U of G grad, garnered the 2020 Joseph Plaskett Foundation award in post-graduate painting, valued at $30,000. The Tehran-born artist and graduate of the master of fine art program at U of G in 2020 will use the award to further develop her art practice in Europe when international travel allows.

DR. BARRY HEATH

Odyssey and Shammy Go to School

Odyssey and Shammy Go to School, a children’s book by Saskatchewan veterinarian Dr. Barry Heath, DVM ’72, portrays the roles, training and needs of service dogs.

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BRITTANY LUBY

ENCOUNTER

History professor Brittany Luby’s Encounter, a children’s storybook, was shortlisted for the first annual Sheila Barry Best Picturebook of the Year Award, worth $2,500.

GUELPH CLASSICS SOCIETY

CANTA

The Guelph Classics Society, consisting of U of G undergraduate students enthusiastic about ancient literature, art, history and languages, launched the student-led, peer-reviewed journal Canta/ἄειδε: A Journal of Classical Studies. The first edition appeared in early 2020.

KATHLEEN HEPBURNE

THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN Kathleen Hepburne, MFA ’12, co-wrote and co-directed the critically acclaimed and multiple award-winning film The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open with Elle-Maija Tailfeathers. The Toronto Film Critics Association gave the Indigenous story the 2019 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, worth $100,000. Praised by critics across North America, the film was named one of the top 10 Canadian movies of 2019 and was named best Canadian film by the Vancouver Film Critics Circle.

EUGENE BENSON

THE SYMMETRY OF THE TYGER Eugene BensonIn his memoir The Symmetry of the Tyger, professor emeritus Eugene Benson, School of English and Theatre Studies, surveys 90 years of travel, adventure and engagement in Canadian culture. The book charts the author’s own adventures while working and travelling around the globe and recollections of his time at U of G.

MARK MCCUTCHEON

SHAPE YOUR EYES BY SHUTTING THEM shape your eyes by shutting them bookMark McCutcheon, BA ’95, PhD ’06, a professor of literary studies at Athabasca University, has published his The latest books, arts and exhibitions by U of G faculty and alumni first book of poetry. Shape Your Eyes by Shutting Them was published by Athabasca University Press in 2019. Literary critic Di Brandt called the inventive collection a “romp through the surreal landscape of our times.”

RODERICK HODGSON

BARNS – CLASSIC STRUCTURES FROM ACROSS THE LAND Barns bookRoderick Hodgson, BA ’78, has written his 14th book. Barns – Classic Structures From Across the Land details the evolution, style and construction of the grand rural structures. Barns have been his passion for more than 40 years.

KAREN HOULE

THE GRAND RIVER WATERSHED: A FOLK ECOLOGY Karen HouleProf. Karen Houle, Department of Philosophy, was a Governor General Literary Awards finalist in the English poetry category for her latest poetry collection, The Grand River Watershed: A Folk Ecology. Publisher Gaspereau Press said the book presents southern Ontario’s Grand River as “a living system that is full of interconnection and meaning.”

LAUREN SATOK

UNSETTLED: THE ART OF REMAPPING A HISTORY OF ERASURE Lauren SatokVisual artist Lauren Satok, BFA ’02, creates landscapes that explore the effect of colonization on the environment. Her exhibition Unsettled: The Art of Remapping a History of Erasure began in early 2020 at the Debajehmujig Creation Centre in Manitowaning, Ont. Originally from Toronto, Satok now lives on Manitoulin Island. “From a white or settler viewpoint, there is a need to deal with complicity and to share knowledge that can open more doors to equality,” she says.

SIMONE DALTON

RBC TAYLOR PRIZE Simone DaltonSimone Dalton, MFA ’18, was selected as one of five writers for the RBC Taylor Prize for emerging writers mentorship program. She’s currently writing a memoir.

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KATHLEEN HEPBURNE

THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN

Kathleen Hepburne, MFA ’12, co-wrote and co-directed the critically acclaimed and multiple award-winning film The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open with Elle-Maija Tailfeathers. The Toronto Film Critics Association gave the Indigenous story the 2019 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, worth $100,000. Praised by critics across North America, the film was named one of the top 10 Canadian movies of 2019 and was named best Canadian film by the Vancouver Film Critics Circle.

EUGENE BENSON

THE SYMMETRY OF THE TYGER

Eugene BensonIn his memoir The Symmetry of the Tyger, professor emeritus Eugene Benson, School of English and Theatre Studies, surveys 90 years of travel, adventure and engagement in Canadian culture. The book charts the author’s own adventures while working and travelling around the globe and recollections of his time at U of G.

MARK MCCUTCHEON

SHAPE YOUR EYES BY SHUTTING THEM

shape your eyes by shutting them bookMark McCutcheon, BA ’95, PhD ’06, a professor of literary studies at Athabasca University, has published his The latest books, arts and exhibitions by U of G faculty and alumni first book of poetry. Shape Your Eyes by Shutting Them was published by Athabasca University Press in 2019. Literary critic Di Brandt called the inventive collection a “romp through the surreal landscape of our times.”

RODERICK HODGSON

BARNS – CLASSIC STRUCTURES FROM ACROSS THE LAND

Barns bookRoderick Hodgson, BA ’78, has written his 14th book. Barns – Classic Structures From Across the Land details the evolution, style and construction of the grand rural structures. Barns have been his passion for more than 40 years.

KAREN HOULE

THE GRAND RIVER WATERSHED: A FOLK ECOLOGY

Karen HouleProf. Karen Houle, Department of Philosophy, was a Governor General Literary Awards finalist in the English poetry category for her latest poetry collection, The Grand River Watershed: A Folk Ecology. Publisher Gaspereau Press said the book presents southern Ontario’s Grand River as “a living system that is full of interconnection and meaning.”

LAUREN SATOK

UNSETTLED: THE ART OF REMAPPING A HISTORY OF ERASURE

Lauren SatokVisual artist Lauren Satok, BFA ’02, creates landscapes that explore the effect of colonization on the environment. Her exhibition Unsettled: The Art of Remapping a History of Erasure began in early 2020 at the Debajehmujig Creation Centre in Manitowaning, Ont. Originally from Toronto, Satok now lives on Manitoulin Island. “From a white or settler viewpoint, there is a need to deal with complicity and to share knowledge that can open more doors to equality,” she says.

SIMONE DALTON

RBC TAYLOR PRIZE

Simone DaltonSimone Dalton, MFA ’18, was selected as one of five writers for the RBC Taylor Prize for emerging writers mentorship program. She’s currently writing a memoir.

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Richard Oliver and Anne Maheux, One With Everything

For Thomas Craig Oliver, taking U of G’s studio art program in the late ’70s propelled him into a passionate and dynamic artistic life that spanned more than 30 years. A new book about the Ontario artist, who passed away in 2013, was published this year.

One With Everything: The Art of Thomas Craig Oliver was written by the artist’s brother, Richard Oliver, and by well-known art conservator Anne Maheux. Oliver found his creative voice at U of G and acquired the technical skills and inspiration that fuelled his career, according to the authors.

Claude Cormier, Breakwater Park

Claude Cormier studied agronomy at U of G before he got the brilliant idea to create playful public spaces for people and animals. The renowned landscape architect, head of Claude Cormier + Associés Inc., was honoured in the 2019 CSLA Excellence Awards for his firm’s Breakwater Park project, which the company describes as a “magically immersive encounter with Lake Ontario.” It won in the medium-scale public landscapes category.

Among the company’s ongoing projects is The Cats, a cat-themed park in Toronto’s Wellington Street West neighbourhood.

Carolyn Hickey, Woodstock Art Gallery

Carolyn Hickey, an MA grad in art history and visual culture, was named the new head of collections at the Woodstock Art Gallery in Woodstock, Ont. She graduated in 2018 and landed the job last spring.

Hickey said the training and internships during her U of G program prepared her for her new role.

“I get to work with art every day and it’s great,” said Hickey, who is passionate about community engagement and accessibility of arts in Canada.

Jael Richardson, Freedom to Read Award

Author of The Stone Thrower, book columnist and guest host on CBC Radio’s q, Jael Richardson has received the Writers’ Union of Canada’s Freedom to Read Award.

The award recognizes passionate support of freedom of speech. Richardson is the founder of the Festival of Literary Diversity in Brampton, Ont., which is a co-winner of the award.

She has a BA in drama (’03) and an MFA in creative writing (’10) from U of G.

Linda Hutsell-Manning, Fearless and Determined

Linda Hutsell-Manning attended the University of Guelph in the 1970s as a mature student, with the goal of becoming an elementary school teacher. But her Canadian literature professors encouraged her to write. She has published 11 children’s books and a novel as well as numerous short stories and poems in Canadian literary magazines.

Her latest book is the memoir Fearless and Determined: Two Years Teaching in a One-Room School, due out this fall from Blue Denim Press.

Maggie Groat, New Monuments for New Cities

Interdisciplinary artist Maggie Groat’s career continues to flourish. Informed by her Haudenosaunee and Settler ancestry, Groat uses a wide range of media in her works, including sculpture, textiles, site-specific interventions and publications. She has an MFA from U of G.

This past summer, Groat led a tour in the New Monuments for New Cities series in Toronto’s The Bentway public space.

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HELEN MARSHALL, The Migration

Described as a dark and topical fable with a timeless quality, Helen Marshall’s first novel, The Migration, was released in March by Random House Canada.

Born in Sarnia, Ont., to parents who immigrated to Canada from South Africa, Marshall was inspired to become a writer in high school. She studied English at U of G and medieval studies at the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford. She has published two collections of short stories.

LORRAINE ROY, Woven Woods

Artist Lorraine Roy’s exhibition Woven Woods continues its coast-to-coast tour this year. The exhibition consists of 12 circular quilted wall hangings about the science of tree root communication. The intricate, finely crafted pieces are inspired by the research of University of British Columbia forest biology expert Suzanne Simard.

The exhibition began in early 2018 in Waterford, Ont., and will end in 2021.
Roy studied ornamental horticulture at U of G. As an artist, she has worked in textiles for more than 30 years.

CHRIS BANKS, Midlife Action Figure

Chris Banks’s next full-length poetry volume, Midlife Action Figure, is due out this year from ECW Press. Banks has a BA from U of G and a master of arts in creative writing from Concordia University. His first full-length book of poetry, Bonfires, won the Jack Chalmers Award for poetry in 2004.

Midlife Action Figure follows the 2017 release of his full-length volume The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory.

Banks’s poems have been described as heartfelt meditations on the contemporary world, written with conversational ease.

DAVID URBAN, Lonely Boy

New paintings by well-known Canadian artist David Urban were featured this spring at Toronto’s Corkin Gallery.

The new works in the solo exhibition Lonely Boy embrace vibrant colours inspired by Italian design and architecture, while maintaining an affinity with Canadian legends Group of Seven and Painters Eleven. The human body and the landscape merge as one in the paintings.

Urban completed a master of fine art at U of G. He has held more than 40 solo exhibitions and has been included in group shows around the world.

MARINA REED, Primrose Street

Marina Reed’s novel Primrose Street has gained many fans since its 2018 publication.

Residents of Primrose Street go about their relatively mundane lives, remaining virtually invisible to their neighbours. But an unusual invitation placed in their mailboxes forces them out of their shells, exposing their secrets.

Reed has a BA from U of G and a creative writing master’s degree from the University of Windsor.

LAURA BERTRAM, Unspeakable

Laura Bertram appears in the television mini-series Unspeakable this year.

Toronto-born Bertram, who studied history at U of G, had film roles in 50/50 and Gunless. She has worked steadily in television since the early 90s. She appeared in last year’s TV film A Winter’s Dream.

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Linda Mahood

Thumbing a Ride: Hitchhikers, Hostels and Counterculture in Canada

Prof. Linda Mahood in U of G’s Department of History knows hitchhiking – not just from her research but also from her own teenaged experience.

This past summer, her book Thumbing a Ride: Hitchhikers, Hostels and Counterculture in Canada was published by UBC Press and explores the rise and fall of hitchhiking in Canada.

Robert Cram

The Hand-Off

A Robert Cram sculpture titled The Hand-Off has been installed on Lang Way in front of Alumni Stadium and the new Pavilion on the U of G campus.

The metal sculpture depicting a quarterback handing off a football was commissioned by Stu Lang, a former Edmonton Eskimo in the CFL who coached the Guelph Gryphons football team for six years.

Lang and his wife, Kim, funded the new Pavilion at Alumni Stadium through their Angel Gabriel Foundation.

Kim Anderson

Keetsahnak: Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters

Métis writer Kim Anderson is one of three editors of Keetsahnak: Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters. The book’s 36 contributors examine the root causes of violence against women in an effort to create a new model of anti-violence.

James Carl

oof

Giant egg cartons covering a 24-metre-long wall are not such an unusual undertaking for visual artist James Carl. He’s the same artist who created a 635-kilogram replica of a rubber band.

Carl’s grand-scale installation oof occupies a grandiose space in Hamilton, New Jersey’s Grounds for Sculpture until the end of 2018.

A professor of studio art in U of G’s School of Fine Art and Music, Carl is known internationally for replicating mundane objects using materials like cardboard or marble.

Emma Hogg

Winona Rising

Author Emma L.R. Hogg was nominated for the Whistler Independent Book Awards for her new book, Winona Rising. The awards recognize excellence in Canadian independent publishing.

Her volume follows the challenges of a 15-year-old girl after the accidental death of her father. Hogg, who lives in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., graduated with a BA in 2003.

Jennifer Carvalho

Night Thoughts

Jennifer Carvalho’s summer exhibition Night Thoughts at Toronto’s Georgia Scherman Projects received international press coverage. Moody and evocative depictions of forest interiors, Night Thoughts was written about in BLOUIN ARTINFO International, an art magazine and website based in New York City. Carvalho received her MFA in studio art at U of G in 2013.

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Alison Pick

Strangers with the Same Dream

Alison Pick, a Canadian Jewish Book Award winner and Man Booker Prize nominee, has a much-anticipated new novel out.

Strangers with the Same Dream is set in a fledgling kibbutz in 1921 Palestine. A small group of young Jewish pioneers are determined to bring a utopian ideal to life on a plot of land that, 25 years later, becomes part of the State of Israel.

Described as a story told with sensitivity, intelligence and beauty, the novel delves into the dark side of utopian longing, and has been hailed by critics as stunning and riveting.

Born in Toronto and raised in Kitchener, Pick received her BA in psychology from the University of Guelph in 1999. She completed a master’s degree in philosophy at Memorial University in Newfoundland.

Her previous novel, the best-selling Far to Go, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize and won the Canadian Jewish Book Award. It was published around the world. Her memoir, Between Gods, also won the Canadian Jewish Book Award.

Pick has also written two poetry collections. She teaches at Humber School of Writers and the Sage Hill Writing Experience.

Stephen Henighan

Mr. Singh Among the Fugitives

Prof. Stephen Henighan, a prolific writer and translator, had his second novel in six months published earlier this year.

Mr. Singh Among the Fugitives (Linda Leith Publishing) came out in the spring. The Path of the Jaguar (Thistledown Press) was published in late 2016.

Henighan has said in interviews that he began his latest novel as a short story, written in response to several Ontario publishers that praised his Path of the Jaguar manuscript but declined to publish it due to its satirical perspective on the literary establishment and multiculturalism.

Mr. Singh Among the Fugitives follows the ambitions of R.U. Singh, who is driven by a desire to live the life of an English country squire. He settles into a comfortable life as a small-town Ontario lawyer, but is accepted only at the whim of the establishment.

Henighan has a doctorate in Spanish American literature from the University of Oxford. Since 1999, he has taught Hispanic studies in the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Guelph.

He has published five novels, three books of short stories and six works of non-fiction. He is a frequent contributor to numerous publications.

Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston

L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s handwritten journals and major collections are a prized part of U of G’s McLaughlin Library archives. The fabled author of Anne of Green Gables, and many other books that follow heroine Anne Shirley, revealed a great deal about herself in the journals.

Professors emeritae Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston began delving into the 10 journals more than three decades ago, and published abridged versions of them starting in 1985.

Those books proved popular, leading to the publication of unabridged volumes of the journals more recently by Oxford University Press. L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals include reproductions of Montgomery’s own photographs, as well as newspaper clippings, postcards and portraits of the author.

Since June 2016, three volumes covering Montgomery’s years in Ontario have come out, including two this year. Montgomery lived in Leaskdale, northeast of Toronto, as well as in Norval and Swansea, both also in Ontario. She died in 1942.

Jessica Riley

A Man of Letters.

Unsolicited scripts sent to theatre companies can pile up. That wasn’t the case for the late Urjo Kareda, artistic director of Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre from 1982 to 2001, who was legendary for giving thorough notes to those script writers. In the process, Kareda has had a major influence on English-language theatre in Canada.

His correspondence with the individual playwrights who submitted those hundreds of scripts is the subject of a new book by Jessica Riley, who has a PhD in literary studies/theatre studies in English from the University of Guelph. She graduated in 2015.

A Man of Letters: The Selected Dramaturgical Correspondence of Urjo Kareda (Playwrights Canada Press) explores the values and preoccupations that drove Kareda to help playwrights. His frank and detailed letters, most of them rejections, helped shape the writing process for many playwrights.

Riley’s book makes public more than 300 of Kareda’s responses to and ongoing communications with playwrights, some relative unknowns, others celebrated.

Andrew Waldron

Exploring the Capital: An Architectural Guide to the Ottawa-Gatineau Region.

The Ottawa-Gatineau region is a place to walk through Canadian history. Andrew Waldron gives visitors to the nation’s capital a choice of a dozen historical walking tours in Exploring the Capital: An Architectural Guide to the Ottawa-Gatineau Region (Figure 1 Publishing).

With photographs by Peter Coffman, the book maps out routes for 400 historically or architecturally significant landmarks and neighbourhoods in and around Ottawa, including Parliament Hill, New Edinburgh, Old Ottawa South and Rideau Canal.

Waldron has a bachelor’s degree in art history from U of G and a master’s in Canadian architectural history from Carleton University. An adjunct professor in art history at Carleton, Waldron is also a heritage conservation manager, and a former architectural historian with Parks Canada.

Melanie Wah

The Sweetest One

Melanie Mah, a graduate of U of G’s MFA in creative writing, won the 2017 Trillium Book Award for Fiction for her The Sweetest One. The debut novel, published by Cormorant Books, was based on her MFA thesis while at U of G.

The Sweetest One is the story of 17-year-old Chrysler Wong, and the paralyzing fear that grips her and her tragic Chinese-Canadian family living in small town Alberta. Mah was born in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, and now lives in Toronto.

A curse is believed to hang over the family. The evidence is compelling: Three of Chrysler’s siblings met their end upon turning 18 and leaving home, while another has vanished.

The story’s central character fears everything – boys, love, sex, undercooked food, and, of course, leaving home. Will a similar end befall her that took the lives of her siblings, just as they set out to discover a life of their own?

The novel is based in part on Mah’s own life. The youngest child in a large family, she experienced the tragic loss of one of her siblings. That instilled the fear of a similar fate in her.

“None of us know exactly when we are going to die, but it could be tomorrow,” Mah said in a Trillium Book Award promotional video. “You have to live your life now, as if you wouldn’t be here soon.”

The Trillium Book Award recognizes the best work published by Ontario authors. Mah received a $20,000 prize for the win. She joins an illustrious group of authors who previously won the prize, including U of G Professor Emeritus Thomas King, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley and Anne Michaels.

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