Writers' Trust Announces Finalists for 2019 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers!

2019 Dayne Ogilvie nominees Joelle Barron, Lindsay Nixon, & Casey Plett

It's one of the only Canadian prizes celebrating LGBTQ writing, and it's honoured some of the most acclaimed writers in the country, from Zoe Whittall to Farzana Doctor. Established by Robin Pacific in memory of her good friend, the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers is an essential part of the CanLit landscape. 

This year's list of finalists, announced by the Writers' Trust of Canada, is an incredible one, with three talented authors honoured. 

The 2019 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers finalists

• Joelle Barron
• Lindsay Nixon
• Casey Plett

The $5,000 prize, which is given annually to an emerging writer from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer community whose published work demonstrates great literary promise, will be presented at the OnWords conference on Saturday, June 1 at 5:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public and will also be viewable by live stream.

The jury, comprised of previous prizewinners Amber Dawn and Kai Cheng Thom, praised the shortlisted authors' powerful voices. 

For more information about the Dayne Ogilvie Prize, you can visit the Writers' Trust website. 

Congratulations to the finalists!

About the finalists:

Joelle Barron is a poet and writer living on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe of Treaty 3 (Kenora, Ontario). Barron received their MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia in 2014. Their work has been published in literary journals across Canada, and their first full-length poetry collection, Ritual Lights, was published in 2018. Barron works as a coordinator for an LGBT2S+ youth group in Kenora called SPACE and as an organizer for Kenora Pride. They live with their wife and daughter.

Lindsay Nixon is a Cree-Métis-Saulteaux curator, editor, writer, and PhD student in art history at McGill University. They currently hold the position of editor-at-large for Canadian Art. Nixon has previously edited mâmawi-âcimowak, an independent art, art criticism, and literature journal. Their writing has appeared in The Walrus, Malahat Review, Room, and Teen Vogue. Nixon’s memoir and first published book, nîtisânak, was published in 2018. Born and raised in the prairies, they currently live in Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyaang — unceded Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe territories (Montreal, Quebec).

Casey Plett is the author of the short story collection A Safe Girl to Love, the novel Little Fish, and co-editor of the anthology Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers. She wrote a column on transitioning for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Maclean’s, The Walrus, Plenitude, and the Winnipeg Free Press. She is the winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction, a finalist for this year’s Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and a finalist in 2015 for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers. She lives in Windsor, Ontario.