Vancouver Writer Leah Horlick Wins Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT Emerging Writers

IMAGE: CAITLIN PRESS

Leah Horlick, author of For Your Own Good (Caitlin Press, 2015), Riot Lung (Thistledown Press, 2012) is the winner of the 10th annual Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT Emerging Writers, as announced by the Writer’s Trust of Canada. The $4,000 prize is presented annually to an emerging writer who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, and whose published work demonstrates great literary promise. This year’s prize ceremony will take place at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre on June 18, as part of the Canadian Writers’ Summit.

The Dayne Ogilvie Prize will also present honours of distinction to Gwen Benaway and jia qing wilson-yang, who will each receive $250 in prize money.

A jury composed of bookseller Anjula Gogia, poet Billeh Nickerson, and fiction writer Casey Plett selected the winner and honour of distinction recipients. Their citation on the winner reads:

"Leah Horlick’s poetry harvests solace and beauty from lands often thought too dark to cultivate. Hers is a poetry of surviving and, indeed, thriving in the spaces where prairie meets ocean and where love can be complicated. Both Riot Lung and For Your Own Good are must reads. Rarely has a poet transformed silence and taboo into such potent epiphanies."