Good News Required

Hello Gentle Reader

There can be no greater sense of preserving forward then the call of some good news. Sometimes it’s because the person in front of you bought you a coffee, or a co-worker brings you a coffee unexpectedly, or you get invited out for a date, or you catch up with an old friend. Its these small wonders, of no great miracle, and filled with the most mundane elements of life which push us to push just a little more forward in going through life; despite the fact that we swing blindly for the most part, and are completely lost in trying to figure out: where we belong in the larger scheme of these chaotic machinations. Ali Cobby Eckermann, was a unemployed Ingenious Australian poet living in a van with her mother in Adelaide, Australia. This is, until a serendipitous e-mail would change her fortunes. Eckermann received an e-mail stating she was one of two poets to receive the Windham-Campbell Literary Prize in poetry, an award that is worth $165,000 (American).

Ali Cobby Eckermann was awarded specifically for her writings in which she confronts the violent history of the Stolen Generation of Australia. Through language, poetry, and story she is able to give voice to the unspoken traumas and loss which was conveyed during this time; and in a sense begins the process of reconciliation. In reading about her work, Eckermann immediately struck me as an advocate of Australia’s hidden pain, just as Canada attempts to reconcile and make peace with its own dark ghosts with ingenious Canadians, who suffered at the hands of the residential school system.

The Windham-Campbell Literary Prize is a relatively new award. It was inaugurated in two-thousand and thirteen. Since then the award has garnered recognition for its secrecy and the often humorous ways in which the lucky writers have been informed they’ve won; such as one of last year’s fiction winners: Helen Garner (also Australian) thought the award was a hoax, when she found it in her spam folder of her e-mail.

The award has four categories: Poetry, Drama, Fiction and Non-Fiction. This year’s winners are as follows, split into their respective categories and country of origin:

Poetry –

Ali Cobby Eckermann – Australia

Carolyn Forché – United States of America

Drama –

Marina Carr – Ireland

Ike Holter – United States of America

Fiction –

André Alexis – Canada & Trinidad and Tobago

Erna Brodber – Jamaica

Non-Fiction –

Maya Jasanoff – United States of America

Ashleigh Young – New Zealand

Congratulations to all writers and their grand pay day of $165, 000 dollars each!

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Reader

M. Mary