So she vowed to become a scientist and go to Mars. From her small-town home in Ontario, it seemed as if Marco Polo, Magellan and their like had long ago mapped the whole earth. "Every day on a bike trip is like the one before-but it is also completely different, or perhaps you are different, woken up in new ways by the mile."Īs a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she most craved-that of a generalist explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and philosopher-had gone extinct. Gaston, a noted fiction writer, commented on the process saying, "at first I thought 'this is easy, just tell the truth.' But to tell the truth, you have to figure out what the truth is.WINNER OF THE EDNA STAEBLER AWARD FOR CREATIVE NON-FICTION McLeod, shortlisted for Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age (Douglas & McIntyre).Įach of the finalists spoke, discussing their books and the craft of writing nonfiction. The remaining finalists are Bill Gaston, shortlisted for J ust Let Me Look at You: On Fatherhood (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Canada) Ian Hampton, shortlisted for Jan in 35 Pieces: A Memoir in Music (Porcupine’s Quill) Elizabeth Hay, shortlisted for All Things Consoled: A Daughter’s Memoir (McClelland & Stewart) and Darrel J. It is a much-needed message, superbly told."Įach finalist received $5,000, with Harris receiving an additional $25,000 as the winner. Prize founder Noreen Taylor added her praise in her summation of Harris' book, saying that "in an increasingly complex and volatile time, Kate Harris chose to look beyond the challenges of the here-and-now, and instead, remind us to care for one another, to care about the world we live in and to care about what makes living most rewarding. The jurors also spoke passionately of the finalists' work, saying they looked first and foremost for "the ability to tell a story the power of the language." McLachlin (former Chief Justice of Canada) agreed on the challenging volume of the reading, remarking that " kept rolling into my house." MacGregor summed up the daunting task, saying it was "at times gruelling, at times magical."
"It's like a book club for masochists," said Gibb. Jurors Camilla Gibb, Roy MacGregor, and Beverley McLachlin, also spoke, joking about the monumental task of reading over 100 books and selecting a winner from the strong submissions. When she was announced as the winner, she received a standing ovation.
Harris was addressing the crowd of publishers, agents, readers, and media in the Omni King Edward Hotel ballroom in Toronto, being interviewed on stage as one of the finalists for the prestigious RBC Taylor Prize for Nonfiction. This afternoon, Kate Harris spoke about the "glory and pain" of both the bike trip that inspired her memoir Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road (Knopf Canada) and of the writing process itself, discussing how both challenges changed her life.
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