MAINSTREETER STAFF
In our August 2020 issue, The Mainstreeter’s reporter Lori Gandy interviewed Old Ottawa East resident Theresa Ann Wallace following the latter’s selection as the winner of the 2020 National Capital Writing Competition (short story category) presented by the National Capital Region (NCR) branch of the Canadian Authors Association (CAA).
Today, both Gandy, herself an Old Ottawa East resident, and Wallace, who like Gandy regularly contributes articles to The Mainstreeter, find themselves shortlisted for the 2022 National Capital Writing Competition – Gandy in the poetry category for her poem, Afternoon Tea, and Wallace, for her latest short story, Aftermath.
Both Gandy and Wallace, and five other finalists in each of the poetry and short story categories, will learn of the award winners on Tuesday, June 14th at the NCR Awards Night ceremony on ZOOM. Responsibility for the selection of the shortlisted finalists and the ultimate award winners in both categories rests with the distinguished judges of this year’s competition, Heather O’Neill and Lorna Crozier.
Theresa Ann Wallace. Photo by Ross Dance
O’Neill is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist. Her most recent bestselling novel, The Lonely Hearts Hotel, won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and CBC’s Canada Reads. Her previous work, which includes Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night and Daydreams of Angels, has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize two years in a row.
Lori Gandy. Photo by Justin Leo
Crozier’s books have received numerous national awards, including the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry. The Globe and Mail declared The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things one of its Top 100 Books of the Year, and Amazon chose her memoir as one of the 100 books you should read in your lifetime. A Professor Emerita at the University of Victoria, Crozier’s poetry has been translated into several languages, on every continent except Antarctica. Her book, What the Soul Doesn’t Want, was nominated for the 2017 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.
When contacted by The Mainstreeter, Wallace was particularly pleased that her fellow volunteer writer with the community newspaper had earned a selection as a first-time finalist in the NCR poetry competition.
“It’s wonderful that The Mainstreeter’s reporter and copy editor Lori Gandy has been shortlisted in a writing contest judged by Lorna Crozier, one of this country’s best-loved poets. To know that such a fantastic poet has read your work, and given it the thumbs up, is a boost for Lori,” said Wallace. Gandy, who admitted to being “quite chuffed” to have been short-listed, likewise referred to Crozier as her “favourite living poet.”
On behalf of all of the volunteers of The Mainstreeter, we extend congratulations to both of our tremendous volunteer writers and wish them well on June 14th. We will have further coverage of the competition in our August issue.
