Sharon Butala’s Season of Fury and Wonder is the winner of The 2019 City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize! Congratulations, Sharon.
The award, with a prize of $5000, was announced online on June 15, 2020, by The City of Calgary.
Season of Fury and Wonder is a collection of short stories that centres on the lives of older women. It was also a finalist for the 2019 Rogers Writers’ Trust Award for Fiction.
Season of Fury and Wonder was previously published by Coteau Books, based in Saskatchewan. When Coteau closed, Calgary publisher Freehand Books acquired the rights for Season of Fury and Wonder. A new edition will be available in July 2020, and can be ordered now from local booksellers, including Shelf Life Books, Owl’s Nest Books and Pages on Kensington.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Writing at the top of her game, Sharon Butala returns to the short story in this astounding new collection. In Butala’s world, the season of fury and wonder is the season of old age. The stories in this book are the stories of women who have had experiences; women who have seen much of life and have felt the joy of success and the sting of shortcomings; women who hold opinions and come to conclusions about the lives they’ve lived.
But Sharon Butala gives us more — not only is each story an observation on aging, each story in Season of Fury and Wonder pays tribute to a classic work of literature that has had an impact on Butala’s writing. Among these writers are Raymond Carver, Willa Cather, Flannery O’Connor, John Cheever, James Joyce, Shirley Jackson, Anton Chekhov, Alan Sillitoe, Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Allan Poe. The result of Butala’s effort is a series of deeply felt tributes to these writers, to the creativity and their power to inspire.
ABOUT SHARON BUTALA: Sharon Butala is an award-winning author of nineteen books, numerous articles and essays, poetry and five published plays. She has three times been a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Butala is a recipient of the Marian Engel Award, the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, and the 2012 Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence. In 2002 she became an Officer of the Order of Canada. She lives in Calgary.
ABOUT THE CITY OF CALGARY W.O. MITCHELL BOOK PRIZE: Established in 1996, The City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize is awarded in honour of acclaimed Calgary writer W.O. Mitchell and recognizes literary achievement by Calgary authors. Past winners include Marcello di Cintio, Suzette Mayr, Joan Crate and Chris Turner.