Last weekend, while the Vancouver Courier was taking home a combined total of 10 gold, silver and bronze statues at the 2015 Ma Murray community newspaper awards competition for B.C. and Yukon publications, Courier contributor Aaron Chapman was honoured in a different arena.
The author, musician and frequent chronicler of Vancouver’s show biz past received the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award at the 31st annual B.C. Book Prizes gala for his book Live at the Commodore: The Story of Vancouver’s Historic Commodore Ballroom, published by Arsenal Pulp Press. According to the press release, “the award is presented to the originating publisher and author(s) of the best book in terms of public appeal, initiative, design, production, and content.” Chapman’s previous book documented the colourful history of the Penthouse nightclub.
Other B.C. Book Prize awards and winners include:
• Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize: Aislinn Hunter, The World Before Us (Doubleday Canada)
• Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize: Richard Beamish, Gordon McFarlane (editors), The Sea Among Us: The Amazing Strait of Georgia (Harbour Publishing)
• Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize: Eve Joseph, In the Slender Margin: The Intimate Strangeness of Death and Dying (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd)
• Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize: Cecily Nicholson, From the Poplars (Talonbooks)
• Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize: Roy Miki, Slavia Miki, Julie Flett (illus), Dolphin SOS (Tradewind Books)
• Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize: Maggie de Vries, Rabbit Ears (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd)
• Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence: Betty Keller.
More details at bcbookprizes.ca.
