Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing nominees reflect on response to their books

Since publishing their books, the five nominated writers in contention for the annual Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing have undoubtedly received a flurry of feedback. Friends and colleagues text congratulations, critics write opinions, people at bookstore signings offer pens and smiles, and literary agents ask, “What’s next?”

In advance of the Ottawa ceremony announcing this year’s winner of the $25,000 prize on May 10, we asked each author which reaction to their book struck them the most.

Josh O’Kane

Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy (Random House Canada)

The Globe and Mail reporter wrote about Sidewalk Labs, an urban-planning company and Google subsidiary whose attempt to develop a small parcel of land on Toronto’s lakeshore did not go as planned.

When you’re writing a work of investigative non-fiction, you have a responsibility to treat each fact with care and seriousness. Still, the story of Sidewalk Labs’ failed attempt to build a neighbourhood in Toronto was littered with absurdities. The clashing personalities, constant contradictions and curious decisions led to many unbelievable moments. In my writing, I tried to let these moments hang in the air as I told an otherwise serious story about the future of cities. They offered both lessons and levity.

So I was delighted when Chris Abraham of Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre company approached me and said he wanted to work with playwright Michael Healey, a keen observer of Canada’s political failures and foibles, to adapt Sideways for the stage as a comedy. Adaptations have the right to veer away from fact – something I’m not interested in doing in my own work – to tell a broader story. Healey’s vision takes a different direction than my book did, but he’s been picking up on some of the funniest moments I unearthed in my reporting and expanding them into hilarious scenes. I can’t wait to see it on stage in September.

Sideways: The City Google Couldn't Buy by Josh O'Kane.Supplied

Dale Eisler

From Left to Right: Saskatchewan’s Political and Economic Transformation (University of Regina Press)

The book by the senior policy fellow at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy in Regina looks at Saskatchewan politics and the lure of populist leaders.

The word I hear most often from those who have read the book is “memories.” Many say they felt like they were reliving their life through events, some long forgotten, that helped make sense of Saskatchewan’s political and economic transformation. As the author, I find those comments the most satisfying.

The reason is simple: Writing the book was something of an emotional journey for me. The timeline, the people and events that form the story felt personal for me too because they track the memories and experiences of my adult life, from the late 1960s to today.

One reader told me her only regret was that her father, who passed away recently, never got a chance to read the book. “He loved Saskatchewan and its politics, and I know he would have loved your book,” she said.

Those words made it all worthwhile.

From Left to Right: Saskatchewan's Political and Economic Transformation by Dale Eisler.Supplied

Norma Dunning

Kinauvit? What’s Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter’s Search for her Grandmother (Douglas & McIntyre)

The Inuk writer and professor took a personal and critical look at the Eskimo Identification Tag System. Here, she recalls seeing the book for the first time at a bookstore and e-mailing her publisher, Anna Comfort O’Keeffe.

“Hey, look who’s here! She’s gorgeous!” I add a picture of my new book and hit send to my publisher.

“Wonderful! Didn’t know if she would make it!”

“Need one for tonight. Only have photocopied papers with me.”

“Buy her!”

“Huh?”

“Buy her!”

“Buy my own book?”

“Yep!”

I shake my head. Stomp my way to the sales counter. Slap down my card. Sigh.

Back in my hotel room. I pull her tenderly out of the bag. Caress her front and back. First hardcover. I open her pages and inhale her beauty. I admire her cover jacket. I kiss her while whispering, “I’m in love with you,” and remind myself that the best starts in the world are the unexpected, the unplanned.

Kinauvit: What's Your Name? by Dr. Norma Dunning.Supplied

Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii)

Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation (HarperCollins Canada)

Co-writer Andrew Stobo Sniderman describes the response to a book that follows multiple generations of two families, one white and one Indigenous.

Even though our story is largely set in Manitoba, we have been surprised to see how Valley of the Birdtail strikes a chord with readers who have never set foot in the Prairies. Growing up, these readers, like so many settler Canadians, saw the poverty of Indigenous people. “I was finally able to make sense of my childhood” is something we hear from readers who learn for the first time how deliberate government action made, and kept, their Indigenous neighbours poor.

We weren’t prepared to see how deeply Valley affects these and other readers because, in part, we did not understand how many Canadians had witnessed and internalized as normal the inequalities between settler and Indigenous Canadians.

Chris Turner

How to Be a Climate Optimist: Blueprints for a Better World (Random House Canada)

The Calgary-based author is a leading voice on climate-change solutions and the global energy transition.

One of the more common responses I’ve encountered since my book came out is also among the most troubling. It’s some variation on the simple query: Really? As in: Are you really optimistic about the climate fight? I’ve run into it in a number of different guises, but it’s usually a wink-and-nudge sort of tone. It’s a hunch that I must be playing a role.

I’m not – as I say in the book, I came by the optimism honestly over 20 years on the climate solutions beat – but the implication is that no one who takes the climate crisis seriously could possibly be optimistic about the future of civilization. Which is not only a pretty disturbing default position but a collective failure of will and imagination that does a grave disservice to the generations we’ll leave this planet to, and to whom we owe sufficient optimism to carry on.

So I’ll answer it again, as I always do: Yes. Really.