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Poet Caniza Lubrin - another Caribbean Canadian enters the literary winner's circle Score another major literary win for a Caribbean Canadian author. Earlier this week Whitby poet Canisia Lubrin was one of five young Canadian writers to win the Writers’ Trust Rising Star award. The St Lucian born writer was chosen by Vancouver playwright Anosh Irani because he considers her to be one of Canada’s top new writers. Already a gifted poet, Irani says “it will be extremely rewarding for us as she turns her devastating gifts to prose. She will push us and break us in ways that will continue to let the light in.”. The Rising Stars award is a national development program that recognizes talented authors in the early stages of their careers with $5,000 and highlights their work with an endorsement from a proven, influential author. In addition to receiving one-on-one guidance, the five Rising Stars will attend a series of professional and networking events and attend a two-week self-di...

 Simone Dalton captures a top writing award Writer and Pan Player Simone Dalton is keeping a Trinidadian Canadian tradition alive.  The young writer has just won the 2020 RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Author Award making her the 5th Trinidadian Canadian to win a major Canadian writing prize in the past decade. Simone Dalton is a long-time tenor pan player with Toronto Panatics and an author that one magazine declared is one of “20 Black Writers to Read All Year Round!”. Dalton earned an MFA from the University of Guelph. Her work has been published in The Unpublished City: Volume I, and in the anthology, Black Writers Matter. In 2019, her inaugural short play, VOWS, debuted at Soulpepper as part of RARE Theatre’s production, Welcome to My Underworld. She is now working on her first memoir and is currently living in Boston. Dalton won the Award yesterday, thanks to another writer, Ottawa historian Mark Bourrie.  Early this month he won the 2020 RBC Taylor Prize fo...

Killer Book About Killer Bug In The Running For The RBC Taylor Prize Timothy Winegard by Herman Silochan This is the last year for the RBC Charles Taylor Prize. The non-fiction Canadian book prize is closing down in March after marking 20-years of rewarding the country’s best authors. The Prize recently announced the last five authors on the shortlist to win the Prize. One of their books, Timothy Winegard’s history of the Mosquito will have Caribbean readers itching to buy insect spray and install bug proof screens. The female mosquito has, through history, killed more people with her bite than all the wars in the history of man. In the Caribbean, where the fears of dengue, malaria, West Nile and sickle cell, grow, the mosquito is to blame. Dr. Winegard is a Sarnia born, hockey-loving historian who now teaches at the Colorado Mesa University. He has served in both the Canadian and British Armed Forces and knows about war. He says the world is losing the battle against ...