Finalists for the first Penguin Random House Canada MFA Prize announced
Five books including works of journalistic investigation, personal memoir and historical nonfiction have been shortlisted for King’s first Penguin Random House Canada MFA Prize. Congratulations to Gregor Craigie, MFA’17, Marsha Faubert, MFA’18, Anne Fenn, MFA’18, Stacey McLeod, 2019, and Aaron Williams, BJ’13, MFA’17! Read more about the finalists.
Alumni launch ‘The Canadian Jewish Schmooze’ podcast
Michael Fraiman, BJ(Hons)’11, and Alex Rose, BA’16, BJ’17, MJ’18, who both work at The Canadian Jewish News, recently launched a biweekly podcast called The Canadian Jewish Schmooze. Proudly making use of the skills taught to them by King’s radio teachers Doug Kirkaldy, Pauline Dakin, MFA’15 and Mark Pineo, Michael and Alex break down the biggest news rocking the Canadian Jewish world with a rotation of guests and a recurring segment called “Do Jews really need to worry about this?” Some verdicts so far: Jews do need to worry about a shockingly anti-Semitic carnival float in Belgium, but do not need to worry about a no-refund policy on Passover food. They invite all fellow alumni to tune in on iTunes, Spotify or wherever they get their podcasts.
Three MFA alumni are finalists for Atlantic Book Awards
Three graduates of the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program have garnered a total of four nominations for this year’s Atlantic Book Awards. Suzanne Stewart, MFA’16, author of The Tides of Time: A Nova Scotia Book of Seasons (Pottersfield Press) is a finalist for the Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing; Lezlie Lowe, BA(Hons)’96, MFA’16, author of No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs (Coach House), and R. C. Shaw, MFA’17, author of Louisbourg or Bust: A Surfer’s Wild Ride Down Nova Scotia’s Drowned Shore (Pottersfield Press), are both finalists for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Non-Fiction; and Lowe’sNo Place to Go is also a finalist for the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award. Program mentor Lorri Neilsen Glenn also appears on the list of finalists for the Richardson Award, for her book Following the River: Traces of Red River Women (Wolsak and Wynn Publishers Ltd.). “We’re delighted to see the program so well-represented among the finalists,” says Kim Pittaway, executive director of the MFA program. The award winners will be announced at the 2019 Atlantic Book Awards Gala in St. John’s on June 6.
Nance Ackerman’s film screens at Hot Docs
Congratulations to Nance Ackerman, MJ’13and past part-time photojournalism instructor, on her latest film, Conviction. Women are the fastest growing prison population in Canada, and around the world. In the feature documentary film, Conviction, three filmmakers collaborate with women on the inside to explore the stories behind that statistic and ask what they would have needed in their lives to avoid incarceration. Conviction premiered to a full-house at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto on April 28!
Photo Credit: Ariella Pahike
King’s graduand wins big at Classical Association of Canada Senior Greek Sight Translation Exam
Ethan Speigel, 2019, has won third prize in the Classical Association of Canada Senior Greek Sight Translation Exam. This national competition takes place every January, awarding prizes and certificates of merit for the best translations, at sight, of a set passage at both the high school and university level.
“The national exam was quite difficult. I think it was a passage from Aristotle’s Poetics, which can be particularly tricky in Greek,” says Ethan. Fortunately, Ethan had been studying the Greek texts of Aristotle’s Metaphysics for his honours thesis project, so the style of writing wasn’t completely foreign.
This isn’t Ethan’s first award of the year. He found out just days before the CAC Senior Greek Sight Translation announcement that he had been awarded Dalhousie’s Classics Nicole Knox Memorial Prize for Translation. Ethan will be studying Aristotle as a graduate student at the University of Toronto’s department of Classics. Congratulations, Ethan!
Sean Young receives broadcasting scholarship
Sean Young, BA(Hons)’15, has received a Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNF) Broadcasters of Atlantic Canada scholarship. The RTDNF Broadcasters of Atlantic Canada Scholarship is for demonstrated skill in broadcast journalism by a student from Atlantic Canada. Sean is currently in his first year of a Master of Journalism program at Ryerson University.
Alumna stages Greek comedy
Brenda Solman’s, BJ(Hons)’05, theatre company, Theatre Kraken, will be presenting Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, one of ancient Greece’s funniest—and most surprisingly modern—comedies from May 9-18 in Ottawa’s Gladstone Theatre. Fed up with endless wars, the women of Peloponnesia decide to go on a sex strike until peace is brokered. What follows is a pitched battle of the sexes, loaded with innuendo, biting social commentary, and ribald (sometimes even lewd) humour.
Journalism alumnus receives Michener-Deacon Fellowship
Corbett Hancey, BJ’11, has been awarded one of two 2019 Michener-Deacon Fellowships, an award that honours excellence in public-service journalism. “Winning this fellowship is so important because in the absence of awards like this, important stories clarifying Canada’s foreign dealings often go untold,” says Corbett.
Corbett will produce a series of investigative articles for print and broadcast on the recent controversial decision, made by the Canadian government, to allow Canadian defence contractors to sell weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian-backed rebels in the country’s restive east. Corbett credits his time at King’s in helping him build a strong foundation in investigative reporting, data journalism and narrative storytelling that he draws on to this day.
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