Writers' Trust Announces Finalists for 2018 Dayne Ogilvie Prize LGBTQ Emerging Writers Award

Today the Writers’ Trust of Canada announced the three finalists for the 2018 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers. The $4,000 prize is presented annually to an emerging writer from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer community and whose published work demonstrates great literary promise.

The 2018 Dayne Ogilvie Prize finalists are: 

• Ben Ladouceur, author of the poetry collection Otter (published by Coach House Books, nominated for the Lambda Literary Award, and winner of the Gerald Lampbert Memorial Award) and prose editor for Arc Poetry Magazine 
• Trish Salah, author of six poetry collections, including Lambda Literary Award winner Wanting in Arabic, and a professor of Gender Studies at Queen's University
• Joshua Whitehead, an Oji-Cree, Two-Spirit storyteller and academic, author of the poem “mihkokwaniy”, which won Historica Canada's Aboriginal Arts and Stories contest, the poetry collection Full-Metal Indigiqueer and the novel Jonny Appleseed

The finalists were selected by a jury composed of authors Ali Blythe, Greg Kearney, and Shannon Webb-Campbell.

All three finalists will be celebrated and the winner of the $4,000 prize announced at a ceremony in Toronto, hosted by inaugural prizewinner Michael V. Smith. Free and open to the public, the event will take place during the Canadian Writers’ Summit at the Harbourfront Centre on Saturday, June 16 at 5:30 pm. Event details are available on the Writers' Trust website.

Established by Robin Pacific in 2007 to honour her late friend, Dayne Ogilvie, who was a respected editor, writer, literary manager, and passionate lover of all the arts, the Dayne Ogilvie Prize rewards LGBTQ writers of any age who are in the developing stages of their career and whose body of work to date demonstrates great potential. Past winners of the prize include Kai Cheng Thom, Amber Dawn, Farzana Doctor, and Zoe Whittall.