Submitted by Nelson and District Arts Council
The Nelson and District Arts Council and Elephant Mountain Literary Festival need help in nominating emerging writers in West Kootenay communities for the seventh annual Carver Award, which comes with a $500 cash prize and presentation at this year’s ELMF festival.
Nominations must be for writers just starting in their careers who have had one to two books published, or an equivalent body of work published in anthologies or literary journals. To meet the criteria writing must be creative, literary writing (fiction or nonfiction). Self-published authors are eligible. Nominees must live in the West Kootenay.
Nominations must include name and contact information for both the nominator and the nominee, writing discipline (fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, teen, children’s, etc), titles of published works and their publishers, and a letter outlining the reason for the nomination.
Richard Carver was a lover of the arts and the Kootenays, and he was invested in the community. He was a mover and shaker on the board of the Nelson and District Arts Council, the primary sponsor of this award named in his honour. His daughter Jocelyn Carver has continued the family’s generous support of this award.
“Richard believed in creative endeavour for its own sake,” says friend and EMLF committee member Anne DeGrace. “He believed in the process, and he was always generous with his encouragement.”
After Richard passed away in 2009, the Arts Council founded this award in his honour. In 2019 author Rayya Liebich was the successful recipient. Past recipients have included children’s author Darcee O’Hearn and poet Jane Byers. In 2015 the Elephant Mountain Literary Festival became a partner in the award.
After that, the award was received by Susan Dancer, Avi Silberstein, Donna Macdonald, Alanda Greene, Diana Morita Cole, Morty Mint and Ernest Hekkanen.
Nominations and inquiries may be sent to: richardcarveraward@gmail.com with “Carver Award” in the subject line. The deadline for nominations is June 5.