Jury Citation

“Kostash has written some of the most powerfully evocative works of nonfiction in our literature. Her eleven books include All of Baba’s Children; Bloodlines: A Journey into Eastern Europe; and, published this year, Prodigal Daughter: A Journey to Byzantium. Kostash tackles difficult subjects, from the struggles of teenaged girls to the conflicts of eastern Europeans in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. She has twice won the Alberta Culture and Writers’ Guild award for best nonfiction, has been a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, and has won numerous magazine awards for her journalism. She has also been deeply involved in literary politics, being a founding member of the Canadian Periodical Association, the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, the Canadian Nonfiction Collective, and is a former Chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada. She is also a life member of the Canadian Conference of the Arts. In short, she is a Canadian writer of major stature who has unflinchingly lived the writing life.” —2010 Matt Cohen Award Committee (Patsy Aldana, Graeme Gibson, Wayne Grady)