Artsy type

Who wants a book prize?

The longlist for the annual City of Victoria Butler Book Prize was announced this week, and gosh, who wasn’t on it? Here’s the skinny:

In fiction, The Good Lie by D.F. Bailey, The Landlord’s Black-eyed Daughter by Mary Ellen Dennis, Above Ground by Don Easton, Seaweed Under Water by Stanley Evans (already an M Award winner this year), The Breakdown So Far by M.A.C. Farrant, Up on the Roof by P.K. Page, Paper Trail by Arleen Pare and The Jealousy Bone by Julie Paul.

For poetry, there’s The Blue Hour of the Day by Lorna Crozier, Falsework by Gary Geddes, Last Water Song by Patrick Lane, Orphic Politics by Tim Lilburn and Sky Atlas by Alan Wilson.

And in the whopper non-fiction category, we’ve got Black to the Grindstone by Arthur Black, Following the Curve of Time by Cathy Converse, Little Emperors by JoAnn Dionne, Fortune’s River by Barry Gough, Imperial Masquerade by Grant Hayter-Menzies, Cold-cocked by Lorna Jackson, Me, Chi and Bruce Lee by Brian Preston, The Triumph of Citizenship by Patricia E. Roy, Loving the Difficult by Jane Rule, Becoming the Kind Father by Calvin Sandborn, Enchanted Isles by David Spalding, Havens in a Hectic World by Star Weiss and Terrible Victory by Mark Zuehlke.

The short-list will be announced in late August, and the winner of the $5,000 prize will be announced at a swanky soiree on October 15 at the Union Club. Meanwhile, all the books will be on display in City Hall’s foyer from July 21–August 1.