Randall Maggs Recipient of $25,000 Kobzar Literary Award for 2010

TORONTO, March 5 /CNW/ - Renowned Canadian author Randall Maggs has been named the recipient of the $25,000 Kobzar Literary Award for his acclaimed hockey saga Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems (Brick Books, 2008).

Randall Maggs, a poet, editor, artistic director of Newfoundland's March Hare Festival and a professor of literature at Memorial University, accepted the Kobzar prize on March 4 at a gala ceremony attended by over 270 guests at the Palais Royale ballroom in Toronto.

Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems recounts the personal and public life of Terry Sawchuk, premier goalie in the era of the original-six NHL. Like many other goalies, Sawchuk was "a guy from a different planet," but he was uniquely different from other goalies. Maggs probes Sawchuk's Winnipeg upbringing in a household of Ukrainian immigrant parents, and his dark and unpredictable character, continually at odds with his highly public athletic life. Although Maggs' poems focus on Sawchuk and his complex personality, they also convey the physical and psychological hazards faced by professional goaltenders of the age. Illustrated by photographs, the text presents many voices, including Sawchuk's, in a work that guides readers through the triumphs and failures of a tumultuous twenty-year NHL career.

Other finalists for the 2010 Kobzar Literary Award included Elizabeth Bachinsky of Vancouver, BC for God of Missed Connections; Paul Laverdure of Sudbury, ON for Redemption and Ritual: The Eastern Rite Redemptorists of North America, 1906-2006, and Murray Andrew Pura of Pincher Creek, AB for Zo.

The four-member jury for the 2010 Kobzar Literary Award included Canadian authors Sandra Birdsell, Janice Kulyk Keefer, Kerri Sakamoto and Richard Scrimger.

The biennial Kobzar Literary Award is sponsored by the Shevchenko Foundation. It recognizes outstanding contributions to Canadian literary arts through an author's presentation of a Ukrainian Canadian theme with literary merit. Janice Kulyk Keefer, author of The Ladies' Lending Library (HarperCollins, 2007) was the recipient of the 2008 Kobzar Literary Award.

For further information: Dr. Christine Turkewych, Program Director, Kobzar Literary Award and Program, Telephone: [phone], E-mail: [email protected], www.kobzarliteraryaward.com