2010 Vancouver Book Award Finalists
Author & Title Information
FINALIST
George Bowering
The Box
(New Star Books)
FINALIST
Chris MacDonald
A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Vancouver
(Douglas & McIntyre)
WINNER!
Bruce Grenville & Scott Steedman
Visions of British Columbia
(Douglas & McIntyre)
FINALIST
Matt Hern
Common Ground in a Liquid City
(AK Press)
The three short-listed titles were chosen by an independent jury that included:
- Janice Douglas, former librarian
- Fred Wah, poet
- Jean Wilson, former associate director, editorial, from UBC Press
This jury also selected the winning entry.
2010 FINALIST
George Bowering
The Box (New Star Books)
The Book : A tour through the glory days of the 1960s in Vancouver led by Canada's first Poet Laureate. In a series of ten stories introduced by archival photographs, the book breaks with the conventional short story genre by weaving together biography, autobiography, parable and drama.
George Bowering taught English at Simon Fraser University from 1972 until his retirement in 2001. Canada’s first Poet Laureate, he is an Officer of both the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia. He was one of the founders of the poetry publication Tish, and has received two Governor General’s awards: the first, for poetry, in 1969 for The Gangs of Kosmos and Rocky Mountain Foot and the second, in 1980, for Burning Water, reissued by New Star in 2007.
Bowering is well-known for his love of baseball, about which he has also written. He is the author of nine novels, five books of short stories, and numerous volumes of poetry, including Autobiology (New Star, 1972). A reissue of Caprice is due in October 2010.
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2010 FINALIST
Chris MacDonald
A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Vancouver 
(Douglas & McIntyre)
The Book : This easy to use pocket guidebook features Vancouver's most interesting and innovative buildings. Through full-colour photographs, architects' drawings and critical essays, the book highlights a period of unprecedented growth in Vancouver, beginning with Expo 86 and continuing through the 2010 Winter Games.
Christopher Macdonald is Director of the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and contributes regularly to popular and academic journalsconcerning architecture and urbanism. He is the author of Cabin, Cottage and Camp. He lives in Vancouver.
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2010 WINNER!!
Bruce Grenville & Scott Steedman
Visions of British Columbia (Douglas & McIntyre)
The Book : Drawing primarily from the collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery, images by notable visual artists are matched with texts from acclaimed Vancouver and B.C writers.They speak to the diverse visions of this place, its peoples and its histories.
Bruce Grenville is senior curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery. He has organized many group exhibitions, including The Uncanny: Experiments in Cyborg Culture and KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art.
Scott Steedman is a freelance editor and the author of a dozen books. He has worked in publishing since 1987 in the U.K., France and Canada, and spent five years as the literary critic for The Paris Voice.
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2010 FINALIST
Matt Hern
Common Ground in a Liquid City (AK Press)
The Book : The importance of place in the urban future is explored in this series of essays and images that uses Vancouver as a foil in a global search for what makes cities livable.
Matt Hern lives and works in East Vancouver, where he is director of the Purple Thistle Centre. He holds a PhD in urban studies, lectures globally and teaches at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser university. His Books include Field Day, Watch Yourself, and Everywhere All the Time.
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