The Nelson and District Arts Council and Elephant Mountain Literary Festival are seeking nominations of emerging Kootenay writers for the fourth annual Carver Award, which comes with a $500 cash prize and presentation at the Festival’s 100-Mile Gala in Nelson on July 7.
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 be Kootenay/Boundary residents.
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 paragraph 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.
“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 Carver passed away in 2009, the Arts Council founded this award, which has been awarded three times. Children’s author Darcee O’Hearn was the recipient in 2013, followed by poet Jane Byers in 2014. In 2015 the Elephant Mountain Literary Festival became a partner in the award, and that year the award was split between two deserving recipients, children’s author Susan Dancer and novelist Avi Silberstein.
For more information please visit the Nelson and District Arts Council website at ndac.ca. Nominations and inquiries may be sent to: president@ndac.ca with “Carver Award” in the subject line. The deadline for nominations is April 30.