The Meet the Presses collective has announced the finalists for the 2016 bpNichol Chapbook Award. The prize, awarded annually since its establishment in 1985, goes to the author of the best poetry chapbook – in the estimation of the judges – published in Canada in the previous year and submitted for consideration. It is named in honour of the late poet, novelist, and micropress publisher bpNichol.

Thanks to an anonymous benefactor, the prize purse doubled to $4,000 in 2014, making it the richest annual literary award for a poetry chapbook – a collection of no more than 48 pages. The publisher of the winning title also receives $500 thanks to an annual donation by Toronto writers Brian Dedora and Jim Smith.

Judges Alice Burdick of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, and Hoa Nguyen of Toronto, Ontario, chose the finalists from more than 60 submissions from across the country. The judges felt this year’s entries included many excellent pieces and some remarkable book designs.

The finalists for the 2016 bpNichol Chapbook Award are:

Nelson Ball Small Waterways (Apt. 9 Press)
Klara du Plessis Wax Lyrical (Anstruther Press)
Marilyn Irwin The Blue, Blue There (Apt. 9 Press)
Lillian Necakov The Lake Contains an Emergency Room (Apt. 9 Press)
Christine Stewart The Odes (Nomados Literary Publishersz0

The winner will be announced on November 19, 2016, 2pm, at the annual Meet the Presses Indie Literary Market, from 11:30am to 4:30pm at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre in Toronto.

The Indie Literary Market introduces the public to independent literary publishers of books, chapbooks, magazines, broadsheets, and recordings that are generally not available in bookstores. The event is curated by Meet the Presses, a volunteer literary collective devoted to organizing public events showcasing the work of independent publishers of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. For more details, please visit the Meet The Presses website.