09/22/2022
HUGE congratulations to Murray Pura Author for winning Best Contemporary Romance with his book The Sunflower Season (part of the Zoya series) at the annual Word Guild Awards!!!
Click on the link to see a video of the event and a complete list of winners - https://thewordguild.com/media/
Word Guile Press Release -
September 22, 2022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MARKHAM, ON – The Word Guild was pleased to host our 34th annual awards event on Saturday, Sept. 17, in honour of our incredibly talented Canadian writers who are Christian. Co-hosted by authors Tara K. Ross and Murray Pura, the event celebrated the power of the written word and excellence in Christian writing. The event, which took place online for the third consecutive year, recognized unpublished work by new writers as well as work published in 2021 for both Christian and mainstream audiences.
Winners received awards in over 60 genres and categories including books, articles, novellas, short stories, song lyrics and more. In addition, winners were also announced for several specialty awards, including the Harvey/Mackey New Journalism Award, The Debra Fieguth Social Justice Award, and the Leslie K. Tarr Lifetime Achievement Award.
"To add to the diversity of our awards, this year we featured two new specialty awards for Indigenous Writers and Writers of Colour," said Les Lindquist, Treasurer for The Word Guild. "We were thrilled to see the number of entries from Canadian writers who are Christian from these groups."
This year we chose two Best books. My Vertical Neighbourhood: How Strangers Became a Community by Lynda MacGibbon took the honours as Best Non-Fiction book and Maud and Me by Marianne Jones Best Fiction book.
A highlight of the evening included the formal recognition of veteran journalist, Licia Corbella, as the recipient of this year’s Leslie K. Tarr Lifetime Achievement Award. Author, Terrie Todd, took home the most awards on Saturday evening, emerging as the winner in three categories. Her book, The Last Piece, won in the Christian Fiction – Contemporary category, and her historical novel, Rose Among Thornes, won the Debra Fieguth Social Justice Award and the award for Best Book Cover.
"There are so many wonderful Christian writers in our country and we need to celebrate them," said David Kitz, Chair of the Board of The Word Guild, in his remarks during the show.
Congratulations to The 2022 Word Award winners.
The Word Awards were established to encourage the pursuit of excellence in the art, craft, practice and ministry of writing and help raise the profile of Canadian writers who are Christian. For more information about The Word Guild please visit www.thewordguild.com.
A copy of the complete list of winners for The 2022 Word Awards is available below and will also be posted at www.thewordguild.com/media.