BC Celebrates Canada's Best
The Jury
Denise Chong, Ottawa
Denise Chong is best known for her family memoir, The Concubine's Children, which was on the Globe and Mail bestseller list for 93 weeks. Among other prizes, it received the Vancouver City Book prize, the VanCity prize and the Edna Staebler creative non-fiction prize. Denise's theatrical adaptation of her family story premiered in the spring of 2004 at Nanaimo's Port Theatre. Both The Concubine's Children, and her second book, The Girl in the Picture, were finalists for the Governor General's literary award and are translated into several languages. Born in Vancouver, Denise grew up in Prince George. At one time a former senior economic advisor to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, she now lives in Ottawa. One of Denise's speeches, "Being Canadian" is widely anthologized, including in Who Speaks for Canada, Words that Shape a Country, and Great Canadian Speeches.
Lynne Van Luven, Victoria
Lynne Van Luven is an Associate Professor in the Writing Department at the University of Victoria. Lynne is also the editor of Going Some Place: Creative Non-Fiction Across Canada. She began her journalism career in 1968 and worked for two decades at several daily newspapers in Alberta. She can be heard as a book reviewer and cultural commentator on CBC Radio. She has a PhD in Canadian Literature with a focus on feminism in Canadian Drama, and is the co-editor of Pop Can: Popular Culture in Canada. She writes a twice-monthly column on "books and ideas" in the Times-Colonist.
Paddy Sherman, West Vancouver
Paddy Sherman has been a journalist/columnist/editor for most of his life. He was editor and then publisher of The Vancouver Province from 1966 to 1982, then publisher of the Ottawa Citizen from 1982-86. From then until his retirement he was President of the Southam Newspaper Group, Canada's largest group of dailies, and was based in Toronto. He has published three non-fiction books, one on W.A.C. Bennett and two on mountaineering.
BC Award for Non Fiction main page
2005 presentation ceremony introductionsDOWNLOAD