Local authors take home Governor General's Awards

Two Vancouverites are among the authors named today as winners of this year’s Governor General’s Literary Awards.

Michael Harris, a contributing editor at Western Living and Vancouver magazine, took the English-language side of the nonfiction category with The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection (HarperCollins), his exploration of our fast-fading sense of solitude and wonder in an era that grows more wired by the day.

In the category of children’s literature (text), Raziel Reid, the “anti-social columnist” and blogger at DailyXtra.com, won English-language honours for When Everything Feels Like the Movies (Arsenal Pulp Press), a novel for young readers about a bold and openly gay teenager at odds with the standard confines of high-school social life.

In a media release, Canada Council director and CEO Simon Brault praised these works and the 12 other winners as “more necessary than ever in a world in search of meaning and hope”.

The complete list of 2014 GG honourees can be found at the awards’ website.