It’s over a week since I heard from  Dan Wells at Biblioasis that my short story collection, The Two of Us, had been short-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. It was a delicious surprise and is  a great  honour and, but since it happened, I’ve been too busy to post here, and have only been only shocked into action by the Giller Prize tweeting an invite to my website yesterday.  This is rather like having your parents visiting unannounced, and a bit of belated house-keeping seems in order, so here I am,  – delighted, too, with the first review from Quill and Quire:    http://www.quillandquire.com/review/the-two-of-us/

My previous collection of stories, Paradise & Elsewhere was  long-listed for the same prize in 2014. The two books are very different,  so this adds to the pleasure of the current nomination in that I feel both sides of my writing personality and interests  have been in some way endorsed. It’s also great  to be  part of what looks to be a very strong and diverse list.  

Many thanks to this year’s jury, Lawrence Hill, Jeet Heer, Kathleen Winter, Samantha Harvey, and Alan Warner – and also to my editor, John Metcalf, and publisher, Dan Wells for all their skilled work and dogged faith in my writing.