STIFF COMPETITION

I just got an e-mail that made my heart beat a little faster:

Dear Brian Campbell,

On Friday February 23, 2007 at 8 pm, please join CBC Radio One's Eleanor Wachtel and special guests for the announcement of this year's CBC Literary Awards winners on CBC Radio One.

Prix littéraires Radio-Canada winners will be announced on the same day at 10 am on la Première Chaîne de Radio-Canada's program, Christiane Charette.

In the meantime, you can see who the nominees are at www.cbc.ca/literaryawards (in the "Shortlists" section.)

Readings of the winning entries will air on CBC Radio One's program Between the Covers during the week of February 26.

We hope you will join us on-air for this literary celebration!

The Awards Team

For a second I thought they had contacted me to tell me I had won.

Obviously, though, if they have posted the finalist authors' names, the winners have already been decided. (Before, they had only posted the titles... this is, after all, a "blind" -- I always find that a funny adjective -- competition). Here's the list, cut and pasted (red highlighting mine):

Poetry

(List of the 2006 nominees in alphabetical order of title)
A Walker in the City by Meira Cook
Active Pass by Jane Southwell Munro
Almost Postmodern and Nouveau Roman by Hector Williamson
Bending the Branches by Karen Bodlak
Canadiana by Gary Pierluigi
Cell by Cell by Catherine Greenwood
Crow by Cornelia Hoogland
Field of Gems by Brian Campbell
How To be Alone & Other Poems by Julie Bruck
Monstrance by Sarah Klassen
Nine On Nine by Rosalind Goldsmith
Over a Road's Broken Shoulder by Brenda Schmidt
Planning your Seascape by Jeramy Dodds
Sacraments for the Dying by Rachel Lindley
Sicilian Journey by Rosemary Clewes
Speak Softly Low One by Tammy Armstrong
Still Lives by Kelly Nora Drukker
The Art of Poetry by Joel Giroux
The Confession of the Cod Fishermen by Harold Rhenisch
The House of the New Self by Jen Currin
The Inertial Observer by Christopher Weagle
The Light Gatherer: Mattie Gunterman's photos by Catherine Owen
The Policeman's Wife some letters by Marina Endicott
Things Intersect by Jacob McArthur Mooney
To a Curl of Water by Shane Book
Under Glass by Joanne Page
Variations on Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations by Gary Highland
Water Mark by Michael Crummey
Waterwheel by Elana Wolff
Words for Snow by Linda Rogers

Familiar names include Julie Bruck (her mother, Nina Bruck, must have divided loyalties: not only is she a dear friend of mine, but another poet friend and I are in the process of editing her chapbook!), Elana Wolff, Harold Rhenish (I see he's also up for the Creative Non-Fiction award this year), Catherine Owen, and Michael Crummey (also an acclaimed novelist).

Names that ring a bell (I must have seen them somewhere, in journals, etc.) include Meira Cook, Sarah Klassen, Kelly Norah Drukker, Marina Endicott, Gary Highland, Linda Rogers.

Other names I see on the League of Poets member's list include Jane Southwell Munro, Cornelia Hoogland, and Brenda Schmidt.

From what I know of these people, this is stiff competition! I wish them all luck (but especially me!)