Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic

A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING has won the 2014 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.

The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award which recognizes exceptional writing in three categories: adult, young adult and short story. The awards are presented each fall to the best Canadian speculative fiction novel, book-length collection, or short story published any time during the previous calendar year.

Named after the first novel by Phyllis Gotlieb (1926–2009), one of the first celebrated writers of contemporary Canadian science fiction, the award is a cash prize of $1,000 for each of the Adult and Young Adult categories, and of $500 for the short story category. All three awards are presented with the distinctive Sunburst medallion. 

LA REVIEW OF BOOKS: RUTH OZEKI IN CONVERSATION WITH DAVID PALUMBO-LIU, "I DON'T SEE A WAY OF SEPARATING COMEDY AND TRAGEDY."

“I don’t see a way of separating comedy from tragedy. They are, as the ancients knew, two faces of the same coin. I was really happy when Jane Smiley, in a review for the Chicago Tribune, described [my work as] “comical-satirical-farcical-epical-tragical-romantical.” That pretty much describes everything you need to know about my aspirations as a novelist!”

— Ruth Ozeki

September 16, 2014
Los Angeles Review of Books
Where We Are for the Time Being with Ruth Ozeki
David Palumbo-Liu

THE DISH: THE BUDDHIST AS NOVELIST

“A Tale for the Time Being plays with this notion of self or selves, which in Buddhism is called no-self, or anatman. Buddhism teaches that because everything is impermanent, there is no fixed self that remains unchanged in time. And Buddhism also teaches that there is not an independent self, that can exist separate from others. Thich Nhat Hanh calls this interbeing. So what we experience as the self is more like a collection of fluid, interpenetrating, interdependencies that change and flow through time. ”

— Ruth Ozeki

September 21, 2014
This Dish
The Buddhist as Novelist
Andrew Sullivan

The Guardian: Ruth Ozeki beats Thomas Pynchon to top Kitschie award →

Ozeki won the Kitschies Red Tentacle prize on Wednesday night for her story weaving together the lives of a schoolgirl, a writer, and a zen-anarchist nun. The prize is for novels containing "elements of the speculative and fantastic", with Ozeki seeing off competition from Thomas Pynchon, Anne Carson, Patrick Ness and James Smythe to win.

See also: RED TENTACLE!

February 13, 2014
Ruth Ozeki beats Thomas Pynchon to top Kitschie award
The Guardian
February 13, 2014