31 Jul 2018
Posted by Melissa Kawaguchi 
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Four Ontario authors win prestigious 2018 Trillium Book Awards | Kyo Maclear, Birds Art Life; Aurélie Resch, Sous le soleil de midi; Pino Coluccio, Class Clown (Poetry); Sylvie Bérard Oubliez (French Poetry) Photo credit: CNW Group/Ontario Media Development Corporation.
TORONTO — At a gala at the Toronto Reference Library, Toronto author, Kyo Maclear, won the 2018 Trillium Book Award for her non-fiction book Birds Art Life, on June 20.
Published in 2017, this memoir follows Maclear’s experience bird watching in an urban environment, and explores how this activity affects life and art. It also features small illustrations by Maclear.
The cover of Kyo Maclear’s book, BIRDS ART LIFE. Photo courtesy: Penguin RandomHouse Canada.
The Trillium Book Award is considered the most prestigious literary award in Ontario. It was established in 1987 by the Ontario government with the goal of recognizing excellence, supporting marketing and fostering increased public awareness of the quality and diversity of Ontario writers. The award was expanded to include a separate award for Francophone authors and their publishers.
With each award given to the winning author is $20,000 and $2,500 is given to their publishers for marketing these titles. A panel of writers and individuals from the literary community judge all submissions and select the winning titles. Past Trillium winners include Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Timothy Findley, and Anne Michaels. Both fiction and non-fiction books are eligible.
In 2003 the Trillium Book Award expanded to include an award for new and emerging poets. Six books were shortlisted for this year’s award.
Finalists included Rebecca Rosenblum for So Much Love, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson for This Accident of Being Lost, and Catherine Hernandez for Scarborough.
“Honestly, it was just a huge honour to be on that shortlist with writers I admire so much. I write very slowly and very small (in the sense that my books are intimate and miniature in scope),” Maclear told Nikkei Voice about the prize.
“It makes me happy that the Trillium jury saw something worthy in Birds Art Life. My mother walked around the next day like a proud mama peacock so that was kind of sweet and embarrassing.”
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[…] have been nominated and recognized with various awards and her memoir, Birds Art Life, won the Trillium Award last year. Born in London, England, Maclear was raised in Toronto, where she now lives with her family. […]