| Home | Review | Essay | Board | Misc | About |
| . |
|
Essay Archive: |
|
Redressing the G.G.'s
Well, this year poet and part time Ninja Paul Vermeersch has decided to do something about it. Spurred by an ongoing discussion on the Bookninja boards, Vermeersch outlines some ideas for reforming the entire Governor General's Literary Awards procedure. It just might be crazy enough to work, too.
|
||
|
Redressing Gigi
By Paul Vermeersch An open letter to the Canada Council for the Arts, the Governor General of Canada, and the Federal Minister of Canadian Heritage:
Since 1937 the Governor General’s Literary Awards have existed to recognize the very best in Canadian writing. Over the years, several other awards have emerged to laud Canadian writers and their books, including:
With so many literary awards, many offering as much prize money as the GGs (with some offering much, much more), how can Canada’s oldest literary awards hold on to the top spot when it comes to status, glamour, and esteem? The Giller Prize and the Griffin Prize have much flashier awards presentations, and get far more attention from the media. Each year the announcements of these two privately funded shortlists make for front-page news. And when it comes to galas, the GGs could learn a lesson or two from the wealthy private sector. Scott Griffin, who no doubt loves a good party as much as he loves good poetry, has the munificence to provide his guests with dinner, an open bar (it’s like Christmas for poets) and a dance floor (picture this: Toronto poet-laureate Dennis Lee in a black tank top dancing on a chair! I’ve seen it!), and Jack Rabinovich--a man who not only had the money, but also the class, to establish the Giller prize in honour of his late, beloved wife Doris--was visionary enough to make his annual bash a swanky, black-tie affair. The results of highly regarded literary awards like these should be obvious to those in the publishing business. In the bookstore where I work, for example, customers ask me every day about titles on the Giller shortlist, but since the GG shortlists were announced two weeks ago, not one customer has breathed a word about it. In this letter, I propose some changes and reforms that could improve the Governor General’s Literary Awards, producing more impartial shortlists, winners based on broader peer consensus, and a higher profile for the awards in the media. I also ask the question: is it possible to save the bedraggled GGs from redundancy and restore them to the summit of Canadian literary prestige? Well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try. Jury Reform Is it time to change the old format? There’s been an abundance of table talk and hearsay in literary circles, much of which has been reflected in Bookninja.com’s discussion boards, decrying the three-person jury. In a column in this month’s Word: Toronto’s literary calendar, poet Jay Millar writes, “Well, the GG shortlists were just announced and its suddenly confirmed: this award has written itself out of significance.” I believe Millar speaks for many people in the Canadian literary community, but could the problem be with the adjudication process itself? If the purpose of a jury is to ensure that a writer is judged by his or her peers, then we must ask ourselves: does a shortlist determined by a limited three-person committee truly reflect the opinions of the wider literary community? Are shortlists artificially manipulated to be uniformly representative of Canada’s disparate geographic regions? What if, in a given year, the five best Canadian novels were all written by Newfoundlanders, do you think any juried shortlist would reflect this? In addition to the inherent problems of committee adjudication, allegations of cronyism, hidden agendas, collusion, and favour trading abound. Even if such allegations are groundless, they still cast a pall over the perceived validity of the awards. A few participants in the Bookninja discussions have suggested various models for jury reform, or suggested specific limitations to the number of titles any given publisher can submit per category, but I think more radical changes might provide more desirable results. As I mentioned in the discussion, I propose the creation of a voting academy, similar to the famed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, consisting of professional writers of fiction and non-fiction, poets, playwrights, translators and illustrators, along with qualified editors, critics, and select academics. How the academy would work Members of this academy would cast votes with two sets of ballots. The first ballot, with members voting only in categories in which they are recognized experts or participants, would decide the various shortlists. Then a second ballot showing only the shortlists would be issued, giving members a chance to catch-up on titles they might have missed the first time around, and this ballot would decide the eventual winners. In practice, the voting academy would be little more than a mailing list. Members would receive ballots and instructions by mail. There would be no need to meet or discuss the eligible titles. Members would simply vote for the book or books they believe to be most worthy of receiving the awards. An impartial accounting body could then tabulate the results. Academy Membership Membership in the academy should be voluntary. There should also be certain standards for eligibility. The Canada Council already has standards in place to decide who is eligible for funding under their grant programs. Similar guidelines could be adapted for membership in the proposed voting academy and expanded to include editors, critics, and academics, as well as professional writers. Voting Restrictions and Conflicts of Interest Employees of a professional publishing house who qualify for membership in the voting academy may still vote, but should be barred from voting for books published by their employer. Also, because self-published titles are ineligible for the GGs, if an editorial employee of a professional publishing house is also the author of a book published on his or her employer’s list, that book should be considered, in-effect, self-published, and therefore be ineligible for the awards. This would mean, for example, that poet Evan Jones’ book Nothing Fell Today But Rain, which appears on the poetry shortlist this year, but which was also published by Fitzhenry and Whiteside’s poetry imprint, over which Jones has editorial control, would be considered self-published and be ineligible. Similarly, authors who are members of the voting academy should be barred from voting for their own books. Presenting the Awards How can we raise the profile the GGs have in the Canadian media? One thing strikes me as rather obvious. Give the people a good show, and televise it on the CBC. There’s nothing new about televised awards shows in Canada. We have the Junos, the Genies, and the Gemini Awards. Some might say, “But those are performing arts awards. Wouldn’t a literary awards show be boring?” I believe the answer to this question is “no.” Canada also has The Aboriginal Achievement Awards and The YTV Youth Achievement Awards, both of which honour wide varieties of non-performance related achievements and still manage to put on decent shows and draw respectable numbers of viewers. A televised awards presentation would have all the drama of witnessing winners’ (and losers’) reactions on live television. In addition to readings, there could be video montages, special guests, musical numbers, tributes, fanfare, glitz. It would be the kind of grand, public spectacle that Canadian literature has always been missing. Sure, it would be self-congratulatory, but what peer-assessed awards show isn’t? And don’t writers, who spend so much time slaving away in solitude, deserve their moment in the sun? A Statuette As long we’re putting on a glitzy telecast for the awards presentations, we’ll need a symbol for the viewers to key into. A small statuette seems appropriate, a tactile artifact, a fetish object, something for the winners to take home and show off along with their cash prize. Perhaps a small bust of Lord Tweedsmuir, the Governor General who founded the awards, would be too literal. Something attractive and appropriately abstract would suffice, as long as it’s not as ugly as the Henry-Moore-ish Genie statuette, or as boring in its visual concept as the heavy hunk of two-faced Plexiglas that represents the Gemini. A Sexy New Name "The Gigi," of course. It’s feminine, like the Emmy, but more literary-sounding. It’s also French enough to make everyone happy. And it’s another reason the Lord Tweedsmuir bust wouldn’t work for the statuette. What Can You Do? One participant in the on-line discussion suggested a letter-writing campaign. And why not? Write letters to the Canada Council, the Governor General, the Minister of Heritage. Tell them you want to see a bigger, better Gigi. Print out this essay if you want and send it along. In keeping with another suggestion, the administrators of the site will try to arrange an on-line petition. If we can’t force Stockwell Day to legally change his name to Doris, then perhaps we can launch our national literary awards into a brave new world of limelight and legitimacy.
Want to comment on this essay? (discuss) |
||
|
|
||
|
Essay Links:
Governor
General's Literary Awards |
||
|
|
||
| Essay Archive | ||
| . | ||
It
seems like every year there's some sort of outrage over the
announcement of the major awards' shortlists. Who's on? Who's not?
Who knows whom? Who voted for whom? Who bullied whom? Who slept with
whom? Patronage! Nepotism! Downright philistinism! The allegations
fly. 
| Home | Review | Essay | Board | Misc | About |
|
Bookninja © Copyright 2003 |
|||||
