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2010 Creative Non-Fiction Prize Winner

The Malahat Review congratulates Eve Joseph, the winner of its 2010 Creative Non-Fiction Prize. The Brentwood Bay, BC writer’s entry, “Intimate Strangers,” was chosen by David Leach.

As final judge, Leach, singled out “Intimate Strangers” from the one hundred and eighty-eight entries submitted and commented that it “is an essay in the most fundamental sense of that much-abused word: a spirited attempt to discern the unknowable, a brave sally into a dark thicket of our shared experience, and a careful sifting of the author’s travels through the land of the dying. In twelve compact “stanzas,” the essay illuminates one of the great mysteries of the human condition with a supple and often incandescent array of imagery, insight, allusion, even humour—and a daring lack of sentimentality. It’s a work of poetic prose that can rest comfortably alongside the classic writers of the genre, from Michel de Montaigne to Annie Dillard.”

photo of Eve Joseph

Congratulations to Eve Joseph, winner of the 2010 Creative Non-fiction Prize!

EVE JOSEPH was born in 1953 and grew up in North Vancouver. Her first book of poetry The Startled Heart was published by Oolichan Press in 2004 and nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Award. Her second book, The Secret Signature of Things came out with Brick in the spring of 2010. Her work has been published in a wide number of Canadian and American journals and anthologies. Eve was awarded second place in the Great Blue Heron Contest sponsored by The Antigonish Review in 2007 and 2009. She was recently awarded the 2010 P. K. Page Founder’s Award for the best poem of the year in The Malahat Review and was shortlisted for the 2009 CBC Literary Awards in the creative non-fiction category. Her book, The Secret Signature of Things is on the shortlist for the 2010 Butler Book Prize.

DAVID LEACH is an associate professor of creative nonfiction in the University of Victoria's Department of Writing and the president of the Creative Nonfiction Collective, a national writers' organization. His magazine features and travel memoirs have appeared in dozens of national and international publications. His first book, Fatal Tide: When the Race of a Lifetime Goes Wrong (Viking Canada), was published in 2008 and won a Banff Mountain Book Award. He is working on a new book about kibbutz life in Israel.

You can read Eve Joseph's "Intimate Strangers" in our Winter, 2010 issue (#173) due out in January, 2011.

Finalists for the 2010 Creative Non-Fiction Prize were:

Shortlist

  • Tricia Dower, "Graceful"
  • Mark Jarman, "The Troubled English Bride"
  • Jay Brown, "Our Bear"

    • Longlist

    • Gillian Bennett, "Dear Robin"
    • Marilyn Gear Pilling, "Double-take"
    • Kevin Leenders, "Naval Diving Accident"
    • Jenna Spearing, "Sandbag Samurai"
    • Corey Van't Haaff, "The Family Room"

      • Read an interview with Eve Joseph!

      The Malahat Review thanks all the entrants for their continuing support.