We are absolutely thrilled for Lynne Kutsukake, winner of the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in the category of Literary Fiction for The Translation of Love. In her debut novel Kutsukake tells the story of Aya Shimamura, a newly repatriated girl, as she helps a classmate find her missing sister in war-devastated Tokyo.

Author Zoe Whittall, this year’s Literary Fiction judge, says: “The Translation of Love is a tremendously accomplished work, a propulsive and layered story, the scope of which is quite unusual for a first novel. I was gripped and often very moved while reading and it stayed with me for weeks.”

Now in its third year, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize recognizes exemplary Canadian authors in the categories of Literary Fiction, Specualtive Fiction, and Non-Fiction. Each winner receives a $10,000 cash prize as well as promotional, marketing, and communications support to help kick off their burgeoning careers.

On July 13, 2017 Ann Y.K. Choi joined host Nam Kiwanuka on TVO’s The Agenda to talk about her debut novel Kay’s Lucky Coin Variety. Check out her interview here.

We are thrilled for 2017 Porter Fund Literary Prize winner Padma Viswanathan. Presented annually to an Arkansas writer with a substantial and impressive body of work, the $2,000 prize makes it one of the state’s most lucrative and prestigious literary awards.

From The Idle Class Magazine:

“It seemed somehow fitting that I received the call about being selected for the Porter Prize while watching my kids play in Central Park: no matter where I go now, Arkansas, my adopted home, exerts an irresistible pull,” said Viswanathan. “I didn’t know, when I moved to Fayetteville eleven years ago, whether Arkansas would have me, nor what I would have to offer this place. To be awarded the Porter Prize feels like a response to those questions. I am profoundly honored.”

Viswanathan, a Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist, is the author of The Toss of a Lemon  and The Ever After of Ashin Rao.

Westwood Creative Artists, Canada’s largest literary agency representing more than 400 writers, is looking for a candidate to fill a full-time 12 week internship position, beginning Monday August 21^st and ending Friday November 10^th, with possible flexibility for the right candidate.

A considerable amount of time during this internship will be spent working with WCA’s international rights director and rights assistant in preparation for the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. There will also be the opportunity to work with other WCA agents and at the reception desk. In the rights department, the intern will be involved in catalogue proofreading, general preparation and follow-up for the London Book Fair. There will also be some data entry and other administrative tasks. While working with individual agents, the intern will understand how the agent manages his or her authors, learn about Canadian and US submissions, and provide needed support in a varied number of capacities. At the reception desk, the intern will really be at the “nerve centre” of the agency. Tasks will include daily administration work, reading submissions, and receiving authors and publishers as they arrive at the agency.

We offer a competitive honorarium of $1500, a lively and congenial work environment in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood, and an excellent opportunity to gain an overview of the publishing industry in Canada and abroad through the lens of the literary agent and the writers we represent.

The ideal candidate will be eager to learn, highly organized, energetic, and have a positive outlook. Strong proofreading and computer skills required; previous office experience and knowledge of the publishing industry an asset; passionate attention to detail and accuracy a must. Please send your cover letter, resume, and references to the attention of Carolyn Forde at Carolyn@wcaltd.com at your earliest convenience or by July 12^th. We appreciate all applications but will only reply to candidates selected for an interview.

Congratulations to 2017 Saskatchewan Book Awards winners Yann Martel and Trevor Herriot! Martel’s The High Mountains of Portugal won the Regina Public Library Book of the Year Award and the City of Saskatoon and Public Library Saskatoon Book Award. Through different characters – a Portuguese pathologist, a Canadian senator, and our protagonist Tomas – Martel weaves a contemporary fable offering a haunting exploration of great love and great loss.

Herriot’s Towards a Prairie Atonement won the City of Regina Book Award. With the help of a Metis Elder, Herriot revisits the history of one corner of the Great Plains and finds himself facing his own responsibility as a decedent of settlers.

Barbara Gowdy and Joel Thomas Hynes are in good company on The Globe and Mail’s most anticipated books of 2017. Gowdy’s Little Sister explores the limits of the human mind through Rose, who runs a small repertory cinema with her widowed mother. As a series of storms strike Toronto, Rose experiences vivid, ultra-realistic dreams about living someone else’s life. In Hynes’ We’ll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night, scrappy Johnny Keough sets out on a cross-country road trip to scatter his girlfriend’s ashes on a B.C. beach and accept the man he needs to become.