Adventures in Solitude Nominated for Prestigious Hilary Weston Prize

Yeah, that's me beside the first Prime Minister of Canada. I think we're both hung over in those pics.

from the press peeps:

“Grant Lawrence’s Adventures in Solitude Nominated for Canada’s Largest
Nonfiction Prize

Last night, CBC Radio 3 host Grant Lawrence handed out the 6th annual Polaris
Music Prize to the Arcade Fire. This morning, through a hung over haze, Grant
woke up to find himself on a shortlist. Adventures in Solitude has been
nominated for the prestigious Hilary Weston Writers Trust Prize for
Nonfiction, the largest nonfiction prize in Canada.

Grant Lawrence, a Vancouver based broadcaster and author, was among five
authors announced for the Shortlist this morning at Toronto’s Telus Centre
for Performance and Learning. Other authors on the list include Charles
Foran, Charlotte Gill, Richard Gywn and Ray Robertson.

The grand prize is $60,000, making it the single richest annual nonfiction
prize in Canada. The winner will be announced during an event and after-party
on October 25, 2011 at Koerner Hall in Toronto.

“I’m shocked”, Grant Lawrence said Tuesday morning in Toronto. “It’s a great
honour to be nominated for such a prize, and it’s something that completely
caught me by surprise. I’m extremely flattered that my grubby stories from
beyond the end of the road has been recognized this way”.

The Hilary Weston Writers Trust Prize is awarded for literary excellence in
the category of nonfiction, which includes, among other forms, works of
personal or journalistic essays; memoirs; commentary; and criticism, both
social and political; history; and biography. Finalists have demonstrated a
distinctive voice, and a persuasive and compelling command of tone,
narrative, style, and technique.

Adventures in Solitude was released on Harbour
Publishing, and has since become a national bestseller, hitting #1 on the BC
Bestseller list for over 20 weeks. The book is about Grant’s summers spent at
his cabin in Desolation Sound, located on the wild west coast of Canada,
where the characters are just as wild as the weather. Adventures in Solitude
is Grant Lawrence’s first book.”