Near-mint cat and the CBC Literary Awards

I had the pleasure of dropping by a different drummer books in downtown Burlington last week; ostensibly to purchase the new Giles Blunt but really to play with Abigail, the bookstore’s new kitten. (RIP Manda, the sweetest little cat ever to drool on my knee.)

I mentioned to Richard Bachmann, bookseller extraordinaire and my previous boss, that I had recently joined a writing group. He shared with me some hints about the fall guest line-up and passed on a brochure about the CBC Literary Awards. The awards, sponsored by CBC Radio-Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and EnRoute Air Canada, are for English and French-language unpublished works in three categories: short story, creative nonfiction and poetry.

The deadline? November 1, 2009. The prizes? $6,000 for first prize, and $4,000 for second prize (in each category). The competition? Surely, impossibly stiff. But who are we if not the next generation of Canadian literary superstars?

Check out more details here: www.cbc.ca/literaryawards

Maria