Maurice Mierau’s memoir is recognized across the country

Sept. 24.2015

It’s been a big month for Winnipeg writer Maurice Mierau, author of Detachment: An Adoption Memoir (Freehand Books). The book was shortlisted for the prestigious $25,000 Kobzar Literary Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to Canadian literary arts through presentation of a Ukrainian Canadian theme. Mierau will join the other shortlisted authors—including Orest T. Martynowych , Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Grant Buday and Stacey Zembrzycki—at an International Festival of Authors event in Toronto on October 25. For more information about this prestigious award or the event, go to kobzarliteraryaward.com or ifoa.org/events/kobzarifoa.

Detachment was also acknowledged at the 2015 Alberta Book Publishing Awards, where it won the award for the best trade non-fiction book of 2015. In addition, the book’s editor, Barbara Scott, won the Lois Hole Award for Editorial Excellence for her work on the book.

And finally, Detachment is one of the contenders for On the Same Page, a project of the Winnipeg Foundation and the Winnipeg Public Library that encourages all Manitobans to read, and talk about the same book at the same time. The other contenders are All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews, The Evolution of Alice, by David Alexander Robertson, and Kiss of the Fur Queen, by Tomson Highway. Readers had the opportunity to vote on which book would be selected. Polls closed on September 18, and an announcement about the winner will be made in the next week.