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2011 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize Winner

The Malahat Review congratulates Anne Marie Todkill, the winner of its 2011 Creative Nonfiction Prize. The Ottawa, ON writer’s entry, “Hoarding,” was chosen by Terry Glavin.

As final judge, Glavin singled out “Hoarding” from the one hundred and thirty-seven entries submitted and commented that it “is a profoundly intimate and heart-rending story that cuts to the quick without any attempt to inflict pain, disclosing a family tragedy without any resort to melancholy or even the slightest trace of narcissism or self-pity. There is not a single dodge or shortcut in it. There is no elaborately reconstructed dialogue, there are no sleights of hand or flights of whimsy, and not a single concession to the faddish. There is only the plain and everyday language of the author, and from her perfectly ordinary lexicon, the wholly unglamorous people and even the tiniest objects within her field of vision are allowed to tell their own unembellished and extraordinary stories. 'Hoarding' is the kind of story that redeems the ‘problematized’ genre of creative nonfiction, besides, and returns the vocation to its greatest virtues and value. It's a true story about real life, a short story not one jot less glorious than a grand work of fiction. We need more of this.”

photo of Anne Marie Todkill

Congratulations to Anne Marie Todkill, winner of the 2011 Constance Rooke CNF Prize!

ANNE MARIE TODKILL is an Ottawa-based writer and editor.  Her publications include short stories (Ars Medica) and poems (Ars Medica, Arc Poetry Magazine and The Malahat Review). She won Arc's "Poem of the Year" contest for  2011.

TERRY GLAVIN has worked as a reporter, columnist and editor for the Daily Columbian, the Georgia Straight, Vancouver Sun, the Globe and Mail, and the online daily The Tyee. He is the author of six books and the co-author of three. His books have been published in Canada, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. He is an adjunct instructor in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and the editor of Transmontanus Books. He has won more than a dozen literary and journalism awards, including the Hubert Evans Prize and several National Magazine Awards, and he was the recipient of the 2009 B.C. Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. His essays and criticism frequently appear in newspapers and magazines as diverse as SEED (New York), Lettre Internationale (Berlin), the National Post, Canadian Geographic and the Vancouver Review.

You can read Anne Marie Todkill's "Hoarding" in our Winter, 2011 issue (#177) due out in January, 2012.

Finalists for the 2011 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize are:

Shortlist

Lyn Baldwin, “The Collecting Basket”
Will Johnson, “Whatever You’re On, I Want Some”

Longlist

David Bourgeois, “The Long Red Line”
Sally Hayward, “All the Bright Stars”
Kath MacLean, “If You Don’t Like Them, Take Your Bread and Butter in the Kitchen By Yourself”
Lori Norman, “Nothing Quells the Longing”
Greg Robinson, “Fish Trap Bay”
Carrie Saxifrage, “Deep Blueberry Gestalt”
Alison Watt, “Mouth Music”

Read an interview with Anne Marie Todkill.

The Malahat Review thanks all the entrants for their continuing support.