Latest news with #NatalieSue
Global News
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Global News
Alberta writer Natalie Sue sees her debut novel become finalist for Leacock humour writing prize
Calgary writer Natalie Sue's debut novel about the absurdities of office life is one of three finalists for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. The $25,000 award, named for essayist and humorist Stephen Leacock, honours the best Canadian book of literary humour published in the past year. Sue's I Hope This Finds You Well, which centres on a burnt-out office worker whose unsent email drafts accidentally go public, is on the short list. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Also making the cut is Toronto author and playwright Greg Kearney's An Evening With Birdy O'Day, about an aging hairstylist revisiting his friendship with a washed-up pop idol. Rounding out the list is Toronto writer Patricia J. Parsons' We Came From Away: That Summer on the Rock, which follows a feuding family's Newfoundland road trip. Story continues below advertisement The winner will be announced June 21 at a gala dinner in Orillia, Ont.
CBC
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Greg Kearney, Patricia J. Parsons and Natalie Sue finalists for $25K Leacock Medal for Canadian humour writing
Canadian writers Greg Kearney, Patricia J. Parsons and Natalie Sue have made the shortlist for the 2025 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. The $25,000 prize is one of the oldest of its kind, established in 1947 to support the growth of Canadian humour writing. Kearney is on the shortlist for his book An Evening With Birdy O'Day, which follows Roland Keener, an aging hairstylist in Winnipeg who enjoys a quiet, predictable life with his partner of 25 years, Tony. That calm is disrupted when Birdy O'Day —Roland's first love — returns to the city for his debut concert, forcing Roland to confront the complicated past that took them from lovers to strangers. Kearney is a writer who divides his time between Toronto and Winnipeg. His previous works include the short story collections Mommy Daddy Baby and Pretty, which received a ReLit Award, as well as the novel The Desperates, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. His plays have been staged at Theatre Passe Muraille and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Parsons is recognized for her novel We Came From Away: That Summer on the Rock. In We Came From Away: That Summer on the Rock, Nora Houlihan, a proud Newfoundlander nearing her 100th birthday, insists her far-flung children and grandchildren return home to celebrate. She plans a cross-island tour to reconnect them with the province they left — but unexpected family secrets emerge, changing everyone in surprising ways. Parsons is a Toronto-based writer with a background in health communications and academic textbook writing. Sue is on the shortlist for her book I Hope This Finds You Well, which follows Jolene, an anxious admin for Supershops, Inc., as she navigates a workplace of unsatisfactory colleagues. Jolene copes with the frustrations of her office job through passive aggressive messages in emails that are never meant to be seen. When she is caught and reprimanded, an IT mishap results in her having access to the confidential messages of her superiors. Can Jolene use this to the advantage of her career? Sue is a Calgary-based writer of Iranian and British descent. I Hope This Finds You Well is her debut novel. The winner will be revealed on June 21. The prize is named in honour of Ontario writer Stephen Leacock, a humorist and popular author in the first half of the 20th century. His books include Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, published in 1912, and Literary Lapses, published in 1910. The prize has been funded by the Dunkley Charitable Foundation since the fall of 2020. The organization is based in Orillia, Ont., the town that inspired the fictional community of Mariposa in Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. Leacock had a summer estate there. Last year's winner was Patrick deWitt for The Librarianist. Other past winners include Wayne Johnston, Heidi L.M Jacobs, Robertson Davies, Pierre Berton, Farley Mowat, Paul Quarrington, Mordecai Richler, Stuart McLean, Terry Fallis, Susan Juby and Cassie Stocks. The Stephen Leacock Associates also announced the winners of the 2025 Student Humorous Short Story Competition. Nina Yu from Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute won first place for Error 404: The Life of a Search Engine. The runners-up are A Scroll Down Memory Lane by Iris Matthews and The Great Escape by Hamza Siddiqi.
Toronto Star
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
Natalie Sue's ‘I Hope This Finds You Well' among Leacock humour writing prize finalists
Calgary writer Natalie Sue's debut novel about the absurdities of office life is one of three finalists for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. The $25,000 award, named for essayist and humorist Stephen Leacock, honours the best Canadian book of literary humour published in the past year. Sue's 'I Hope This Finds You Well,' which centres on a burnt-out office worker whose unsent email drafts accidentally go public, is on the short list. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Also making the cut is Toronto author and playwright Greg Kearney's 'An Evening With Birdy O'Day,' about an aging hairstylist revisiting his friendship with a washed-up pop idol. Rounding out the list is Toronto writer Patricia J. Parsons' 'We Came From Away: That Summer on the Rock,' which follows a feuding family's Newfoundland road trip. The winner will be announced June 21 at a gala dinner in Orillia, Ont. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 20, 2025.
Winnipeg Free Press
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Natalie Sue's ‘I Hope This Finds You Well' among Leacock humour writing prize finalists
Calgary writer Natalie Sue's debut novel about the absurdities of office life is one of three finalists for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. The $25,000 award, named for essayist and humorist Stephen Leacock, honours the best Canadian book of literary humour published in the past year. Sue's 'I Hope This Finds You Well,' which centres on a burnt-out office worker whose unsent email drafts accidentally go public, is on the short list. Also making the cut is Toronto author and playwright Greg Kearney's 'An Evening With Birdy O'Day,' about an aging hairstylist revisiting his friendship with a washed-up pop idol. Rounding out the list is Toronto writer Patricia J. Parsons' 'We Came From Away: That Summer on the Rock,' which follows a feuding family's Newfoundland road trip. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. The winner will be announced June 21 at a gala dinner in Orillia, Ont. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 20, 2025.
CBC
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Natalie Sue and David Huebert among finalists for $60K Amazon Canada First Novel Award
Social Sharing Authors Natalie Sue and David Huebert are among the six finalists for the 2025 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. The $60,000 award is a collaboration between Amazon Canada and The Walrus recognizing the best debut Canadian novel of the year. The remaining finalists will each receive $6,000. Sue is nominated for her novel I Hope This Finds You Well, which follows Jolene, an anxious admin for Supershops, Inc., as she navigates a workplace of unsatisfactory colleagues. Jolene copes with the frustrations of her office job through passive aggressive messages in emails that are never meant to be seen. When she is caught and reprimanded, an IT mishap results in her having access to the confidential messages of her superiors. Can Jolene use this to the advantage of her career? The 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is accepting submissions! Sue is a Calgary-based writer of Iranian and British descent. I Hope This Finds You Well is her debut novel. Huebert is shortlisted for Oil People, which is a novel set in southwestern Ontario, and weaves together two narratives and timelines to unravel family secrets and the toxic yet powerful nature of oil. The novel tells the story of 13-year-old Jade Armbruster in 1987, who is living on the family's deteriorating oil farm, as her parents decide what to do about the land and their business. Jade's teenage experiences are juxtaposed with the 1862 story of Clyde Armbruster, who built the oil farm, and the rivalry he develops with his neighbours. Huebert is a Halifax-based writer who has won the CBC Short Story Prize and The Walrus Poetry Prize. He is the author of short story collections Peninsula Sinking, which won a Dartmouth Book Award and was a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and Chemical Valley, which won the Alistair MacLeod Short Fiction Prize. The other shortlisted authors are Quebec's Valérie Bah for Subterrane, B.C.'s Andrew Boden for When We Were Ashes, Alberta's Benjamin Hertwig for Juiceboxers and B.C.'s Myriam Lacroix for How It Works Out. In Bah's Subterrane, Zeynab is working on a documentary on the margins of New Stockholm, a North American city. Cipher Falls is a polluted, industrial wasteland where artists and anti-capitalists are forced to work dead-end jobs to survive. Zeynab focuses her documentary on Doudou Laguerre, an activist who mysteriously died — and the potential that his death had something to do with his dissent against a construction project. 4 Black Canadian writers to watch in 2025, according to book aficionados Ryan B. Patrick & Alicia Cox Thomson Boden's We Were Ashes follows Rainor Schacht, who revisits his past as a child in a ward for disabled children in a remote hospital called Trutzburg in Nazi Germany. Rainor sets out to find another survivor, Emmi, after discovering the kind bus driver's coded diary, and the two piece together their fragmented memories of a horrible place. In Hertwig's Juiceboxers, Plinko is a 16-year-old undergoing basic training before finishing high school. When he moves in with an older soldier, he and the other roommates, people from all different backgrounds, build an unlikely friendship. After 9/11, the military plans to go to war in Afghanistan so the young men are sent to the battlefields of Kandahar and are forever changed. Lacroix's How It Works Out explores the hypothetical questions we often ask ourselves about relationships — what if we had taken a different job, moved to another city, or never met that person? The novel pushes these "what ifs" to the extreme: what if one of you were a power-hungry CEO and the other an employee, or even a reptile and a dog? Through a series of surreal and vulnerable realities, one couple navigates countless alternate versions of their relationship. The jury is composed of writers Jean Marc Ah-Sen, Liz Harmer, Chelene Knight and Shani Mootoo. The winner will be announced at an in-person award ceremony in Toronto on June 5, 2025.
