Terry Glavin named recipient of
the sixth annual Lieutenant Governor’s Award
for Literary Excellence

Okay…. it was author Terry Glavin who partly inspired me to create a “writer's speaking series” on the 2007 strike line of CUPE 391 Vancouver Library Workers.   Terry called me up for some reason or another, maybe to admit he was a big fan of my Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner, and somehow I asked him to give a reading on our strike line.  And that's how it started!  After Terry came many other authors such as Stan Persky, Hiromi Goto, Daniel Gawthrop, Rita Wong, Tom Sandborn, Chuck Davis….  but it started with Terry! http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/15/3160687.htm

We since became friends and look for reasons to go for a pint of Guinness at the Irish Times Pub in Victoria, or host a Gung Haggis house party at his place… but the only thing we manage to do is leave comments and links to each other blogs. 

Terry has written amazing books, and is very big on diversity – both cultural and environmental and bio-diversity.  Moreover, I think we recognize in each other a deep respect for First Nations culture and history, the ability to laugh and poke fun at mainstream institutions, and the necessity of shaking up the world a little now and then.

But on this Saturday, I will be able to have a drink and toast to my rabble rousing “outspoken voice” as he is feted by the BC literati.  In the mean time he says he “Vows To Resist The Urge To Cash The Cheque And Head Straight For The Track”

http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-vow-to-resist-urge-to-cash-cheque-and.html

At last year's BC Book Prizes, I got to hang out a bit with Gary Geddes, the 2008 winner of the Lt. Gov's Award for Literary Excellence. 
Rita Wong and Gary Geddes big winners at BC Book Prizes Gala http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com/blog/_archives/2008/4/29/3666200.html

Terry and Gary are friends, so Terry won't mind if I put Gary's picture in here…

Check out the official BC Book Prize website…

and what they have to say about Terry:

Vancouver, BC
– The West Coast Book Prize Society is proud to recognize Terry Glavin as the
recipient of the sixth annual Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary
Excellence.

British
Columbia’s Lieutenant Governor,
the Honourable Steven Point, will present
the award at the
Lieutenant Governor’s BC Book Prize Gala to be held at
the Marriott Pinnacle Hotel in
Vancouver on April 25, 2009.

The event will be hosted
by BC BookWorld publisher and
author Alan Twigg .

“Terry Glavin,
author and journalist, has been an outspoken voice in
British Columbia as a conservationist and
nature writer. He is known for his passionate commitment to
British Columbia ’s First Nations and
for his deep understanding of how First Nation culture and way of life are
bound up with the province’s
natural history and our future as a just and sustainable society.
 

In addition to his books,
Glavin’s many articles on social and political issues are evidence of his
strong journalistic ability to marshal facts and his unwillingness to go with
the accepted wisdom of either
the right or the
left. In his role as an iconoclast, he is a critical voice in
the dialogue that sustains a civil society.

As editor, Glavin has also
brought us the innovative and
courageous Transmontanus series, published by New Star Books. Established in
1992 with the aim of exploring
the relationships between landscape and imagination,
this innovative series of 16 titles has given voice to authors and
the mes that might o the rwise
have been lost to us.

Glavin offers an
extraordinarily holistic vision that does not focus on single issues, but
instead in everything he writes shows us a world where culture and nature,
human aspiration, natural beauty, language, history and social justice are
inextricably intertwined.
 

Terry Glavin has won many
awards for his work as a journalist, as a science and technology writer, for
his editorial innovation and for his powerful essays. We are privileged to
honour him with the Lieutenant
Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence in 2009, for his contribution to
life and letters in British Columbia
and for his willingness to show us how to see our world more deeply, more fully
and more truthfully.”

– Jury member Ellen Godfrey

The jury for this year’s Lieutenant
Governor’s Award: Ellen Godfrey, author and former literary publisher;
David Hill, Manager of Munro’s Books, Victoria; and Sheryl Mac
Kay , host of CBC’s North by Northwest.

This prize was
established in 2003 by former Lieutenant Governor, the
Honourable Iona Campagnolo, to recognize British
Columbia writers who have contributed to
the development of literary excellence in
the province. The recipient receives a cash award of
$5,000 and a commemorative certificate.

 

All BC
Book Prizes info at www.bcbookprizes.ca