The nominees for the 23rd annunal Trillium Awards have been announced! These awards, given for both fiction and poetry in English and French, are awarded by the Ontario government for excellence in literature.

We're very please to congratulate three of our publishers and their authors on being nominated this year:

Cordelia Strube for Lemon, published by Coach House Books, was nominated in the fiction category. The Toronto Star writes, '[Cordelia Strube is] Canada's best bet to succeed Alice Munro.'

Alexandra Leggat for Animal, published by Anvil Press, was also nominated in the fiction category. Ibi Kaslik at the Globe & Mail says, 'these quickly unfolding stories are elliptically drawn, tense with action and dark humour. Leggat is a shape-shifting writer.'

Susan Holbrook for Joy is so Exhausting, published by Coach House Books, was nominated in the poetry category. The Northern Poetry Review writes, 'With Joy Is So Exhausting, Holbrook gives us humour, bluntness, shrugs of shoulders, and -- yes -- joy ... rife with tongue-in-cheek observation.'

Matthew Tierney for The Hayflick Limit, published by Coach House Books, was also nominated in the poetry category. David McGimpsey says, 'The most thoroughly engaged and inventive book of poetry I have read in a long, long time. Brimming with hi-lo wit, keenly apprised and settled with cultured repose, Matthew Tierney takes The Hayflick Limit to the hoop.'

Jacqueline Borowick for Le chant du coucou, published by Inanna Publications, was nominated in the french poetry category. Rover An Independent Review of the Arts writes, 'The poems have a sing-song quality that demonstrates the author's mastery of sound and rhythm.'

Nominees will be reading at a public event on June 23 in the Bram & Bluma Appel Salon of the Toronto Reference Library. Winners will be announced on June 24th at a luncheon in Toronto.