2024 TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD
JURIES AND WINNING PUBLISHERS

June 20, 2024

TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD/PRIX TRILLIUM

The Ontario government established the Trillium Book Award in 1987 to recognize the literary excellence and diversity of Ontario writers and writing. The Trillium Book Award reflects the wealth of talent and creativity of Ontario authors writing in both English and French languages. The award is open to books in any genre which makes for a rich, diverse range of fiction and non-fiction winning titles.

Among this year’s thirteen Trillium Book Award finalist titles in French and English, there are a variety of genres including short stories, novels fiction and non-fiction and poetry. Several of these Ontario authors are emerging voices, but many have been published to national acclaim. This year’s finalists explore the intricacies of personal relationships; they guide us on a quest to find belonging; they share with us the grief of a personal loss; and reveal to us the essence of being human. In short, they answer the question of what it means to be alive.

We thank the members of the juries for their dedication and hard work in reviewing the many submissions, narrowing them down to a shortlist and selecting the winning authors.

TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD JURIES

ENGLISH LANGUAGE JURY FOR TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD

• Donna Bailey Nurse is a literary critic specializing in the work of Canadian authors and Black women writers from around the world. She is the author of What’s A Black Critic to Do? (Insomniac) and the editor of Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writing (M&S). Her work has appeared in The Walrus, Maclean’s, The Toronto Star, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail and The Literary Review of Canada. Donna has been a juror for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, The Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction, The Amazon First Novel Prize, The Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust Award for Non-Fiction and The Windham Campbell Prize. She has interviewed many distinguished writers among them Toni Morrison, Esi Edugyan, Marilynne Robinson, Bernardine Evaristo, Edwidge Danticat and Jamaica Kincaid. Donna is a curator of literary events, most recently Beloved: A Celebration of Toni Morrison and Black Women Writers for the Luminato Festival. She is currently at work on an African- Canadian history called The Black Album, as well as a memoir of her Jamaican Canadian family, both for Harper Collins Canada. Visit her website at www.blackiris.co .

• Shawn Micallef is the author of Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness, Full Frontal TO: Exploring Toronto’s Vernacular Architecture and The Trouble With Brunch. The expanded and updated edition of Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto was released in May 2024. He’s a Toronto Star columnist, instructor at University of Toronto, a Senior Fellow at Massey College and a co-founder of Spacing magazine.

• Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of four poetry books, and the short story collection How to Pronounce Knife, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Trillium Book Award. Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, and Granta. She is the only writer in the history of the prize to win both the Trillium Book Award for Poetry (2014) and the Trillium Book Award (2021).

ENGLISH LANGUAGE JURY FOR TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY

• Andrew Faulkner is the author of two collections of poetry, Heady Bloom and Need Machine, both published by Coach House Books. He lives in Prince Edward County, where he works as an editor and strategist for Assembly Press and co-runs the PEP Rally poetry reading series.

• Jennifer LoveGrove is a poet and novelist. Her next full-length collection of poetry, The Tinder Sonnets, is forthcoming in 2025 with Book*hug. Her novel Watch How We Walk was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Beautiful Children with Pet Foxes was longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award. She is currently at work on a new novel called Bone Harvesting. She works at the University of Toronto, and divides her time between downtown Toronto and Squirrel Creek Retreat in rural Ontario.

• Bermuda born, Jamaican heritage writer Dane Swan is the author of 5 books, including 2 books of short fiction and 3 books of poetry. His poetry collections include: The Trillium Book Prize for Poetry nominated A Mingus Lullaby, and the ReLit Poetry Prize nominated Love and Other Failed Religions. Dane is also the editor of the anthology Changing the Face of Canadian Literature, which was featured on CBC Books' 2020 Best Canadian Books list. Two of Dane's poems are featured in composer Paul Frehner's Sometimes the Devil Plays Fate, which premiered at the Lincoln Center in NY and Toronto's Temerty Theatre in 2022. Sometimes the Devil Plays Fate is the title track of Frehner's album with the Hamilton Philharmonic, released in 2023.

FRENCH LANGUAGE JURY FOR TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD

• An engineer by training, Soufiane Chakkouche is a writer, journalist and screenwriter originally from Morocco who has lived in Toronto for the past five years. After the success of his debut novel, L’inspecteur Dalil à Casablanca, published in Morocco, he wrote a second detective novel, L’inspecteur Dalil à Paris, which was published in France by Éditions Jigal. This latter novel was a finalist for the prestigious 2019 Grand Prix de littérature policière. In 2021, his third novel, Zahra, was published in Canada by Éditions David. Far from the world of detective fiction, this work received a special mention from the jury for the 2022 Prix Champlain, in addition to being a finalist for the Prix Alain Thomas and the French-language Trillium Book Award. This makes Soufiane Chakkouche one of the few authors to be published on three different continents. In 2022, he published L’inspecteur Dalil à Beyrouth in France. His fifth novel is currently being published in Canada.

• Madeleine Stratford is a poet, literary translator and professor at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. She was awarded the Prix Orpheus in France for her first collection of poems, Des mots dans la neige (Anagrammes, 2009). Four of her translations have been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award (2016, 2019, 2021, 2023). Recent publications include Swallowed, her English translation of Réjean Ducharme’s Quebec classic L’Avalée des avalés (Véhicule Press, 2020) and Courir vers le danger, her French translation of Sarah Polley’s bestseller Run Towards the Danger (Boréal, 2024). Madeleine is currently working on writing a new book of poems under a grant from the Ontario Arts Council.

• Jennifer Tremblay co-founded Éditions de la Bagnole in 2004 and was its editor for nearly ten years. Since then, she has overseen the publication of works of all genres for several publishers and led a variety of projects on her own: writing workshops, creativity workshops, public readings, story-time sessions, conferences, artistic support and literary direction. In 2008, she received the Governor General’s Award for her play La liste, which has been translated into nine languages and produced on every continent, in addition to winning national and international awards. She has received several grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and has published picture books and novels for young people, novels for adults, poetry and plays.

Congratulations to the publishers of the Trillium winning books for their commitment to, and support, of the authors:

PUBLISHERS OF TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD WINNERS

• Invisible Publishing is a small, scrappy, and seriously good producer of contemporary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, with an emphasis on Canadian authors. As a not-for-profit publisher, they are committed to publishing diverse voices and stories in beautifully designed and affordable editions. At heart, they are makers: they work hard on every book they publish to ensure the author’s vision is fully realized, and to help them reach as many readers as possible. (Invisible Publishing for The Clarion by Nina Dunic).

• Arsenal Pulp Press is a book publisher in Vancouver, Canada with over 400 titles currently in print, which include literary fiction, nonfiction and poetry; books on social issues; gender studies; LGBTQ2S+ and BIPOC literature; graphic novels and non-fiction; children's and young adult literature; regional history; cookbooks; alternative crafts; and books in translation. They are interested in literature that engages and challenges readers, and which asks probing questions about the world around us. (Arsenal Pulp Press for More Sure by A. Light Zachary).

• With an eye out for authentic voices, L’Interligne focuses on multicultural French-Canadian works that stand out for their exploration of contemporary issues and their original style, forging different paths that bring together the authors and their audiences. They publish a variety of literary genres – novels, short stories, poetry, theatre, drama and essays for adults,and fiction for young people. (Éditions L’Interligne for Vivre ou presque by Nicolas Weinberg).

ABOUT US
Ontario Creates is an agency of the Government of Ontario that facilitates economic development, investment and collaboration in Ontario’s creative industries including the music, book, magazine, film, television and interactive digital media sectors.

Media contact:

Michelle Gibson
Argyle PR
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Jennifer Pountney, Manager of Communications
Ontario Creates
JPountney@ontariocreates.ca
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