Want to see the look on my face on winning the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award? There’s a video!
Recently in Hurrah! Category
In case you are wondering, no, I have not yet recovered from the win at the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Awards. In part because I’ve been very busy with the delightful business of giving interviews. Here’s the press round-up so far!
Here’s the CBC website piece, where I’m apparently “visibly stunned.” There’s a link included to a long radio conversation between Sheryl MacKay and me about Plain Kate.
Here’s The Record, my hometown paper, where I talk about getting hit by a happy bat and planning to use my prize money to buy a new mattress. That was the last interview of the day; I was somewhat loopy.
Here’s the Toronto Examiner, which picks up that great line from the citation: “this is a book that will be read for generations.”
Here’s the National Post. Just the announcement, but they’ve got a spiffy picture!
Also carrying the annoucement, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Quill and Quire, Publisher’s Weekly, and probably others I’ve missed
So. So, Plain Kate won.
This time yesterday I was going through a checklist: Little Black Dress? Check. Fresh manicure (cobalt blue)? Check. Big earrings? Check. An undergarment so supportive that I no longer bent in the middle? Check. Time to go off to the Canadian Children’s Book Centre awards, where Plain Kate was up for the big prize, the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award for most distinguished book for children. My goal for the evening was to not throw up. At least not on anyone important.
The event was at the Carlu, the old Eaton’s Centre ballroom from the days when department stores had ballrooms: a restored Art Deco beauty of a place. There were seven hundred people there: book sellers, librarians, publishers, editors, writers — all people who love children’s literature. There was great food (I was too busy to have any) and a drink named after Plain Kate, the Plain Kate-tini. (Vodka and Sour Puss Raspberry Liqueur.) So we mingled and schmoozed than then all us nominees got sent to sit in the front of the gorgeous theatre.
I had written a speech, just in case (remembering about Francis at the Tonys) and memorized it. But as I waited for the big award announcement, which of course came last, I got more and more nervous. I thought: If I have to get up there, my jaw will just drop open. Nothing good will come out. I figured I’d better make a cheat sheet, so I did, on the back of the program with a lipstick pencil. The awards ceremony was great, especially because all the books I was rooting for won. (The Agency! I Know Here! The Glory Wind!) Still, the “don’t throw up” goal was beginning to prove challenging.
And then — well. Then I won. Here is the citation:
“Plain Kate is a triumph of imagination. With astonishing skill, Erin Bow creates the world of Kate, whose talents as a wood carver mark her as a witch. The fascinating, intricate plot bravely explores the wrenching complexities of cruelty and of love. Bow’s prose is at once lyrical and raw, and her characters are indelible. This is a book that will be read for generations.”
I got up on stage without either tripping or barfing and stood there for a second. Frank McKenna handed me a very big cheque and told me to cash it right away, as the markets were taking a beating.
Wow, I thought. Big Room, I thought. Bright Lights, Big Room. Wow. I’m pretty sure my jaw did fall open.
But then I did collect myself and gave my speech. I have no idea what I actually said, but this is what I had memorized.
This is my first novel, and I wrote it very slowly; it took me six years. It’s been very strange to put it out into the world. My Kate is an unloved and outcast girl — and yet when I put her out into the world, she was embraced. Maybe even loved. And while a writer is not her work, I can’t help feeling that I’ve been embraced, too, by the kind of people who are hear tonight: readers and writers and publishers and the true champions of children’s literature, booksellers and librarians. And for that I thank you, all.
There are of course some particular people I need to thank. First, TD and the Book Centre, for throwing this wonderful party for us. (Well, it’s a wonderful party for me.) It is good to see children’s literature on centre stage, not off in the side ring.
Second, of course, the Plain Kate team. It turns out (and as a poet I didn’t know this) that a novel is not just the work of an author. A lot of people who have put their professional energy behind Kate. Emily van Beek, my agent, loved her first — picked her out of the slush pile and read her while having her toenails done on rainy Tuesday. She called me the next day, I think. Emily found my editor, Arthur Levine. And from there the whole team at Scholastic, and in particular the wonderful people at Scholastic Canada, many of whom are here — everyone, thank you.
Finally, I want to thank some of the people who came here with me tonight. My husband James is here: my fellow writer, he’s been with me every paragraph of the way. Neither of us would be half as good a writer without the other. Thank you James. My mother’s here: She’s come a thousand miles out of her way for me, because she always does — everyone in my family always has. My little daughters Vivian and Nora — they are five and three — they are not here, because they have patience with Mommy’s A Writer. It would be hard to be a writer without that. So I thank them. Actually this is a complete lie, they cried when I left and I know they’re sulking now, but I have faith that someday they’ll be proud.
You know, everyone always says it’s an honour to be nominated, but truly — have you seen this list? I’ve read all these books. Burn — as a poet, I’m so pleased to see something formally adventurous get the nod. The Glory Wind — I just read that this weekend, and loved it so much the bath water got cold; it’s the best Middle Grade I’ve read this year. I really did Know Here. And of course I know there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run, but now we can see that made fresh again. To be among that company is amazing. To be up here is beyond words.
(photo credits: Me and Frank McKenna and the stack of books — The Canadian News Wire Services. Me speaking: Carly Popenko.)
Tuesday I was driving alone on a quiet highway. The clouds were high puffy storybook clouds, with lots of blue between them. When I was almost home I drove into the shadow of a cloud, and saw then saw the front edge of the shadow sweeping along ahead of the car: as if by driving I was pushing the light ahead of me.
The whole week has been like that: a delicate week of edges, beginnings and strangeness of light. It began last Friday when I finished the first draft of Children of Peace, a book that tumbled out of me in less than six months. I’m doing a few last minute edits, and hope to send the whole thing to my agent before the week is out.
I also got a new job. Starting Monday, I’ll be a writer/editor for the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics — a gig so cool it nearly sounds fictional. I’ll be halftime, working for PI in the mornings, and retiring to The Bordello (my novel-writing office) in the afternoons. I probably will continue to say not much about my professional writing here (it’s not the venue) but I must at least mention this, because a) it’s a permanent job and b) PI is amazingly awesome place. I glimpsed Leonard Susskind, an inventor of string theory, today. Fortunately I was too far away to fangirl him.
Finally, Plain Kate has been showered with honours this week — not just the TD Canadian Children’s Literary Award, which I gave its own headline, but the Sunburst Award honouring Canadian literature of the fanastic, and the Rocky Mountain Book Award, which is Alberta’s children’s choice award. With the Sunburst I’m keeping short-list company with Charles de Lint. With the Rocky Mountain Book award, thousands of kids across Alberta will read the nominated books and vote. Once this sinks in I’m sure I’ll be thrilled.
So it really is a strange time for me: liminal, a threshold time. I feel vulnerable and happy; at a loss and excited. Ready to try something new.
Holy cow, y’all. I just heard that Plain Kate is a finalist for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award!
The TD describes itself thusly: “The TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award is for the most distinguished book of the year. “Distinguished” is defined as marked by conspicuous excellence and/or eminence, individually distinct and noted for significant achievement with excellence in quality. The grand prize is $25,000.”
There are five finalists, ranging (age-of-audience-wise) from Gordon Lightfoot’s picture book to, well, Kate, just sneaking into the “for children up to twelve” requirements.
I am all around thrilled. Kate was shortlisted for the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year, and for the CBC’s Reader’s Choice award in the young adult category. (I wanted to win that one: the logo was a Golden Beaver.) But I think this is the biggest catch yet.
The TD Children’s Literature Award will be announced in October, at an “invitation only gala” in at the Carlu in Toronto. I am going to need a serious frock.
