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Carrie Mac (born February 25, 1975) is a Canadian author of more than a dozen novels for Young Adults, both contemporary and speculative. Her latest work is the literary novel, LAST WINTER, due out from Random House Canada in early 2023. She also writes literary short fiction, and creative non-fiction. Some of her accolades include a CBC Creative Nonfiction Prize, [1] [2] the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, [3] and the Arthur Ellis Award, [4] as well as various other awards and recognitions. [5] [6]
Mac was born in Kamloops, British Columbia. During her childhood and youth, Mac lived in Vancouver, Grand Forks, Abbotsford and on the Sunshine Coast.
Mac's first job, at age seven, was to read the Bible to an ex-Son of Freedom; she was paid a quarter a page. Mac dropped out of high school in Grade eleven, completing her secondary education by correspondence. She trained as a paramedic at the Justice Institute of British Columbia. Mac also worked at various times as a sign language interpreter, a bookstore clerk, and a child and youth advocate in a transition house. [7]
A self-confessed bookaholic, Mac credits Louise Fitzhugh, author of Harriet the Spy, with the realization of "what kind of power words carry, and how they can be used to sharpen your own identity and injure others." Other influences include: Anne Cameron, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro. Mac explains that Raymond Carver showed her that "the lives of working class people (my people) are filled with stories worth writing about too, and that you don't need to go on and on and on and on to relate human emotions when you can nail it down so adroitly with less." [8]
Pain and Wastings, Jacked, Charmed, and Crush were written for Orca Book Publisher for the Soundings Series. The Soundings series is written specifically for reluctant or difficult to engage readers, also known as hi-lo readers (high interest, low reading level). It features contemporary themes, often including what might be considered controversial material and language.
All of Mac's YA novels have queer, gay or questioning characters. She says of her work "I know for myself that I can't leave queer characters out of my writing, even if they're gay and only I know it, or I don't spell it out." [9]
Quill and Quire describe Mac as a "powerhouse" and her novel The Opposite of Tidy as "irresistible and not to be missed." [10] C.J. Bott, in VOYA, said of The Beckoners, "The powerful intensity in this book will either keep the reader riveted or forced to take breaks from the haunting discomfort." [11]
"Mac's experience as a paramedic gives her portrayal of their work an easy authority, and she sketches Ethan and his group home with a certain amount of precision and humour. The fluidity of the storytelling, as well as the dramatic circumstances of the story, are likely to attract Orca Soundings readers." [12]
Mac's book Charmed, about a girl who is trapped into prostitution, was banned by the Plano Independent School District in Texas, in 2006/2007. The book "was challenged due to profanity, sexual content and violence." [13] However, according to Dave Jenkinson, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education, the University of Manitoba, "Mac's authentic treatment of her subject matter carries through to the book's conclusion… Charmed is the gold standard of what hi-lo titles can be. Highly Recommended." [14]
Mac lives in Vancouver with her children. She is a queer [15] [16] mom and attachment parent. [17]
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The Pat Lowther Memorial Award is an annual Canadian literary award presented by the League of Canadian Poets to the year's best book of poetry by a Canadian woman. The award was established in 1980 to honour poet Pat Lowther, who was murdered by her husband in 1975. Each winner receives an honorarium of $1000.
The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award is an annual literary award presented by the League of Canadian Poets to the best volume of poetry published by a first-time poet. It is presented in honour of poetry promoter Gerald Lampert. Each winner receives an honorarium of $1000.
The Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award is a Canadian literary award administered by the Atlantic Book Awards & Festival for the best work of adult fiction published in the previous year by a writer from the Atlantic provinces. The prize honours Thomas Head Raddall and is supported by an endowment he willed to it. The award is currently worth $30,000, with additional finalists receiving $500 each.
Kevin Chong is a Canadian author. Born in Hong Kong, Chong studied at the University of British Columbia and Columbia University, where he received an MFA in fiction writing.
Marie-Louise Gay is a Canadian children's writer and illustrator. She has received numerous awards for her written and illustrated works in both French and English, including the 2005 Vicky Metcalf Award, multiple Governor General's Awards, and multiple Janet Savage Blachford Prizes, among others.
Jen Sookfong Lee is a Chinese Canadian broadcaster and novelist. A radio personality for CBC Radio One in Vancouver, British Columbia, she contributes a regular literary segment called "Westcoast Words" to On the Coast and All Points West, the network's local programs in Vancouver and Victoria, and is also a regular contributor to the national network program The Next Chapter. In the CBC's national Canada Reads competition in 2009, she defended Brian Francis's novel Fruit.
The Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize is awarded annually as the BC Book Prize for the best juvenile or young adult novel or work of non-fiction by a resident of British Columbia or the Yukon, Canada. It was first awarded in 1987. It is supported by the B.C Library Association.
Sarah Ellis is a Canadian children's writer and librarian. She has been a librarian in Toronto and Vancouver. She has also written reviews for Quill and Quire. She taught writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a masthead reviewer for The Horn Book.
The Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize is awarded annually as the BC Book Prize for Canadian authors and illustrator of picture books, picture story books, and illustrated non-fiction books. The prize is shared by the author and the illustrator, who must be a resident of British Columbia or Yukon. It was announced in 2002 and first awarded in 2003. A handful of finalists are also selected for another award: participation in the expenses-paid BC Book Prizes on Tour, a week-long tour across the province to present their books at schools and libraries each April.
The ReLit Awards are Canadian literary prizes awarded annually to book-length works in the novel, short-story and poetry categories. Founded in 2000 by Newfoundland filmmaker and author Kenneth J. Harvey.
The Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by the Writers' Trust of Canada to an emerging Canadian writer who is part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer community. Originally presented as a general career achievement award for emerging writers that considered their overall body of work, since 2022 it has been presented to honor debut books.
Monique Polak is a writer from Montreal, Quebec. She has won the Janet Savage Blachford Prize, formally known as the Quebec Writer's Foundation Prize for Children's and Young Adult Literature, three times: What World is Left (2009), Hate Mail (2014), and Room for One More (2020).
The Raymond Souster Award is a Canadian literary award, presented by the League of Canadian Poets to a book judged as the best work of poetry by a Canadian poet in the previous year.
Alexandra Shimo is a Canadian writer.
Lindsay Wong is a Canadian writer, whose memoir The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family was published in 2018. The book, a humorous memoir about her Chinese Canadian family's history of mental illness, won the 2019 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and was a shortlisted finalist for the 2019 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Chelene Knight is a Canadian writer and poet.
All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward is a 2018 book by Anishinaabe journalist Tanya Talaga about the colonisation of Indigenous peoples in Canada and internationally.
Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me is a 2019 memoir by journalist Anna Mehler Paperny about her experience of major depressive disorder and suicidal ideation. It was nominated for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction in 2019.
Julie Lawson is a Canadian writer of children's nonfiction books. Her 1993 book, White Jade Tiger, won the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize.
Robin Stevenson is a Canadian author of thirty books for kids and teens. Her writing has been translated into several languages, and published in more than a dozen countries. Robin's books regularly receive starred reviews, have won the Silver Birch Award, the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize and a Stonewall Book Award, and have been finalists for the Governor General's Awards, the Lambda Literary Award, and others. She writes both fiction and non-fiction, for toddlers through teens.
