Longlist Announced for BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, One of Canada's Largest Book Prizes

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Nov. 6, 2014) - The jury for the eleventh annual BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, one of Canada's largest literary non-fiction prizes, has selected its longlist for 2015.

One hundred thirty-four books were nominated for the $40,000 prize by 33 publishers from across the country. The prize jury has selected the following longlist of ten books.

title		author		publisher
The Necessary War: Canadians Fighting The Second World War 1939 - 1943		Tim Cook		Penguin Canada
One Hour in Paris: A True Story of Rape and Recovery		Karyn L. Freedman		Freehand Books
The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We've Lost in a World of Constant Connection		Michael Harris		Harper Collins
Enlightenment 2.0: Restoring Sanity to Our Politics, Our Economy, and Our Lives		Joseph Heath		Harper Collins
The Morning After: The 1995 Quebec Referendum and The Day That Almost Was		Chantal Hébert with Jean Lapierre		Knopf Canada
Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design		Charles Montgomery		Doubleday Canada
Opening Heaven's Door: What The Dying May Be Trying To Tell Us About Where They're Going		Patricia Pearson		Random House Canada
Between Gods: A Memoir		Alison Pick		Doubleday Canada
Circling The Midnight Sun: Culture and Change in the Invisible Arctic		James Raffan		Harper Collins
Our Ice Is Vanishing Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq: A History of Inuit, Newcomers, and Climate Change		Shelley Wright		McGill-Queen's University Press

The BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction will announce its shortlist in early December and the award will be presented in Vancouver in February, 2015.

The jury for the 2015 British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction comprises:

Jared Bland, currently the arts editor at The Globe and Mail and previously was a senior editor at House of Anansi;

John Fraser, a journalist and writer who served as master of Massey College from 1995-2014;

Anne Giardini, writer, director, lawyer and executive, and the Chancellor of Simon Fraser University.

"Our heartfelt thanks to the jury panel for its thoughtful reading of the books submitted for the 2015 awards," said BC Achievement Foundation chair Keith Mitchell. "This longlist demonstrates the breadth and quality of non-fiction writing in Canada. Congratulations to the longlist authors."

Previous winners of the BC Award include:

• Thomas King for The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America (2014)
• Modris Eksteins for Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age (2013)
• Charlotte Gill for Eating Dirt (2012)
• John Vaillant for The Tiger (2011)
• Ian Brown for The Boy in the Moon (2010)
• Russell Wangersky for Burning Down the House (2009)
• Lorna Goodison for From Harvey River (2008)
• Noah Richler for This Is My Country, What's Yours? (2007)
• Rebecca Godfrey for Under the Bridge (2006)
• Patrick Lane for There Is a Season (2005)

The BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction is presented by the British Columbia Achievement Foundation, an independent foundation established and endowed by the Province of British Columbia in 2003 to celebrate excellence in the arts, humanities, enterprise and community service. This is the eleventh year in which the award will be presented.

For more information on the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and on submission guidelines, please visit www.bcachievement.com.