RELEASE: Carmella Gray-Cosgrove wins the 2021 BMO Winterset Award
Mar 17, 2022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 17, 2022 (St. John’s, NL) – Carmella Gray-Cosgrove is the winner of the 2021 BMO Winterset Award for her debut story collection, Nowadays and Lonelier. The award, which celebrates excellence in Newfoundland and Labrador writing, was presented today at a ceremony at Government House in St. John’s.
The two other finalists were Aimee Wall for We, Jane (Book*hug Press, Toronto, ON) and Claire Wilkshire for The Love Olympics (Breakwater Books, St. John’s, NL). This marks the second year in a row that three finalists were female—a first in the history of the Award.
The BMO Winterset Award is managed by ArtsNL, but is a partnership made possible through the generous support from BMO Financial Group, the Sandra Fraser Gwyn Foundation, and Carol Bishop Gwyn, widow of the project’s founder, writer Richard Gwyn, O.C. The prize awarded to the annual winner is $12,500, while the finalists each receive $3,000. It is one of Atlantic Canada’s richest literary prizes.
Nowadays and Lonelier (Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver, BC) is one of 35 works by Newfoundland and Labrador authors (either native-born or resident) that were submitted by publishers from across the country. Books in any genre, published in 2021, were eligible. The jury consisted of Petrina Bromley, Eva Crocker, and Nelson White.
The BMO Winterset Award honours the memory of Sandra Fraser Gwyn, St. John’s-born social historian and prize-winning author, who did so much to promote a national awareness of the arts of this province. Her husband, journalist and author Richard Gwyn, O.C., established the award in 2000. It is named after the historic house on Winter Avenue in St. John’s where Sandra grew up.
Carmella Gray-Cosgrove was raised in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver on the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples and lives in St. John’s, on Ktaqmkuk, the traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq and the ancestral homelands of the Beothuk, with her partner and their child. Her fiction has appeared in PRISM International, Broken Pencil, Freefall Magazine, The Antigonish Review, and elsewhere. Nowadays and Lonelier was shortlisted for the NLCU Fresh Fish Award for Emerging Writers. She was the 2020 writer in residence for Riddle Fence. Carmella holds a master’s degree in geography from Memorial University and was an F.A. Aldrich Fellow.
Media enquiries:
Charlene Jackson
Communications Officer, ArtsNL
charlene@artsnl.ca
The Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council (now known as ArtsNL) is a non-profit Crown agency created in 1980 by The Arts Council Act. Its mission is to foster and promote the creation and enjoyment of the arts for the benefit of all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. The Council is governed by a volunteer board of 13 appointed by government, reflecting regional representation of the province. This includes 10 professional artists who provide sectoral representation of the arts community; two community representatives (with an interest in the arts); and one representative of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts and Recreation (non-voting). ArtsNL receives an annual allocation of $5 million from the Province to support a variety of granting programs, program delivery, office administration, and communications. It also seeks support from the public and private sector. It supports the following artistic disciplines: dance, film, multidiscipline, music, theatre, visual art, and writing.
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