bpNichol Chapbook Award 2016 Shortlist

The Meet the Presses collective is excited to announce the finalists for the 2016 bpNichol Chapbook Award. The prize, awarded annually since its establishment in 1985, goes to the author of the best poetry chapbook – in the estimation of the judges – published in Canada in the previous year and submitted for consideration. It is named in honour of the late poet, novelist, and micropress publisher bpNichol.

Thanks to an anonymous benefactor, the prize purse doubled to $4,000 in 2014, making it the richest annual literary award for a poetry chapbook – a collection of no more than 48 pages. The publisher of the winning title also receives $500 thanks to an annual donation by Toronto writers Brian Dedora and Jim Smith.

Judges Alice Burdick of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, and Hoa Nguyen of Toronto, Ontario, chose the finalists from more than 60 submissions from across the country. The judges felt this year’s entries included many excellent pieces and some remarkable book designs, commenting: “These were very strong works, and it was a great pool of work from which to choose.”

The finalists for the 2016 bpNichol Chapbook Award are:

Nelson Ball  Small Waterways (Apt. 9 Press  www.apt9press.ca)
Klara du Plessis  Wax Lyrical  (Anstruther Press  www.anstrutherpress.com)
Marilyn Irwin The Blue, Blue There (Apt. 9 Press  www.apt9press.ca)
Lillian Necakov The Lake Contains an Emergency Room (Apt. 9 Press  www.apt9press.ca)
Christine Stewart  The Odes  (Nomados Literary Publishers www.nomados.org)

The winner will be announced at 2 p.m. on November 19, 2016, at the annual Meet the Presses Indie Literary Market, from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor Street West in Toronto. The Indie Literary Market introduces the public to independent literary publishers of books, chapbooks, magazines, broadsheets, and recordings that are generally not available in bookstores. The event is curated by Meet the Presses, a volunteer literary collective devoted to organizing public events showcasing the work of independent publishers of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction.

More details can be found at meetthepresses.wordpress.com.

For more information and interview opportunities, contact Beth Follet at [email protected] or Stuart Ross