Supported by Aritha van Herk
The WGA Golden Pen Award is presented to acknowledge the lifetime achievements of an outstanding Alberta writer. Past recipients have been Alice Major, George Melnyk, Fred Stenson, Aritha van Herk, Robert Kroetsch, Merna Summers, Myrna Kostash, Grant MacEwan, W.O. Mitchell, Rudy Wiebe and Betty Jane Hegerat.
This year’s recipient is Greg Hollingshead.
Greg Hollingshead has published three novels and four short story collections. In 1995, his third story collection, The Roaring Girl, won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. In 1998, his novel The Healer won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. His 2004 novel, Bedlam, was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was a Globe and Mail 100 Best Books of the Year and a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice for 2006. Greg’s work has been published in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and China. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta and director of the Writing Studio at The Banff Centre. In 2007, he received the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Gold Medal for Excellence in the Arts. In 2011–12 he served as Chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada and in 2012 was awarded the Order of Canada. Greg now lives in Toronto with his wife Rosa Spricer. Read more about Greg at: greghollingshead.com
Congratulations, Greg!
The Golden Pen Award will be presented at the Alberta Literary Awards Gala along with the rest of the Alberta Literary Awards on Saturday, June 4 in MacDonald Hall, SAIT in Calgary. Tickets for the Awards Gala may be purchased here through Writers’ Guild of Alberta website.