BC Celebrates Canada's Best

Lorna Goodison wins the 2008 BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction

One of Canada's largest literary prizes-the BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction-was awarded today to Lorna Goodison for her lyrical family memoir, From Harvey River: A Memory of My Mother and Her People (McClelland & Stewart).

BC Award for Non Fiction

BC Premier Gordon Campbell, Lorna Goodison, and BC Achievement Foundation Chair Keith Mitchell

BC Premier Gordon Campbell presented Goodison with the $40,000 prize in Vancouver at a ceremony that also celebrated the two other finalists for the award, Donald Harman Akenson for Some Family: The Mormons and How Humanity Keeps Track of Itself (McGill-Queen's University Press) and Jacques Poitras for Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy (Goose Lane Editions).

BC Award for Non Fiction

Left to right: the 2008 jury panel (David Mitchell [chair], Patrick Lane, and Sandra Martin), BC Premier Gordon Campbell, Lorna Goodison, and BC Achievement Foundation Chair Keith Mitchell.

BC Award for Non Fiction

Finalist Jacques Poitras with BC Premier Gordon Campbell

BC Award for Non Fiction

Ontario storms prevent finalist Professor Don Akenson from attending the award presentation event. Premier Gordon Campbell is shown with Peter Milroy, UBC Press publisher, who accepted Don's finalist certificate, Keith Mitchell, Chair of the BC Achievement Foundation and Paul Whitney, Chief Librarian of the Vancouver Public Library who introduced Professor Akenson and his book to the lunch audience.

2008 Award Winner

Photos from the 2008 presentation ceremony

2008 Award Finalists

Donald Harman Akenson

Lorna Goodison

Jacques Poitras

2008 presentation ceremony videos

2008 presentation ceremony introductions

Donald Harman Akenson

Award information page