City of Vancouver Book Award finalists announced

This morning the good people at city hall announced the shortlist for this year’s City of Vancouver Book Award. The five nominees, spanning fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, were selected by a jury made up of Ricepaper editor Anna Ling Kaye, Thursdays Writing Collective director Elee Kraljii Gardiner, and Poetry Is Dead editor Jordan Abel. Writers Fest founder Alma Lee chaired the jury.

And the nominees are:

• How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?  by Doretta Lau (Nightwood Editions)

• What Makes Olga Run?  by Bruce Grierson (Random House) 

• Anatomy of a Girl Gang by Ashley Little (Arsenal Pulp Press) 

• Artificial Cherry by Billeh Nickerson (Arsenal Pulp Press) 

• Arthur Erickson: An Architect’s Life by David Stouck (Douglas & McIntyre)

The winning title will be revealed at the Mayor’s Arts Awards ceremony on October 7.