Good News!

Recent CW MFA graduate Sandy Pool has been nomninated for a 2010 Governor General's Literary Award for her poetry collection, Exploding Into Night. Exploding Into Night is Sandy's first book, which was published in 2009 by Guernica Editions. Sandy is currently working toward a PhD at The University of Calgary.

Core faculty member Judith Thompson has also received a nomination for her play Such Creatures, and Karen Connelly, a sessional instructor with the program, has been nominated for her non-fiction title, Burmese Lessons: A Love Story.

Zoe Whittall (Graduated 2009) and Matt Lennox (Current Student) are both on the shortlist for the 2010 ReLit Awards. Zoe's second novel, Holding Still For As Long As Possible, was published in 2009 by Anansi. Matt's first book, a short story collection called Men of Salt, Men of Earth, was also published in 2009 with Oberon Press.

Nancy Jo Cullen (Graduated 2010) was recently named the fourth annual recipient of the Dayne Ogilvie Grant. The Dayne Ogilvie is awarded to "an emerging gay or lesbian writer who demonstrates great literary promise through a body of work of exceptional quality." Nancy Jo has published three collections of poetry, Science Fiction Saint, Pearl, and Untitled Child, all with Calgary's Frontenac House.

Kilby Smith-McGregor, who is now in her second year of the program, was awarded the 2010 RBC Brownen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers for her short story "The Bird in Hand."