November 19, 2009 12:52:55
Posted By Patrick
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Time for another shameless plug! Last night I attended the Quebec Writers’ Federation awards gala at the Lion d’Or not to lean on the bar and knock back drinks with friends I don’t get to see very often (although I certainly did that), but as a finalist in the nonfiction category. My book Idiocy: A Cultural History had made the shortlist for the Mavis Gallant Prize in Nonfiction, along with Eric Siblin’s The Cello Suites and Yves Engler’s The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. I’ll kill the suspense: Idiocy didn’t win. The Cello Suites did (and much deserved, from all the comments I’ve heard about it). So I played the bridesmaid (as did Yves) to Eric’s blushing bride. But I did spend a month (the finalists were announced on October 15th) as a potential winner, all the while being inordinately pleased that the book had managed to escape the dustbin of niche history to gain recognition in mainstream competitions like this one. |