The 2020 Vine Awards: Non-Fiction Panel

7PM

The Koffler Centre of the Arts is delighted to present two virtual panels featuring shortlisted Vine Awards authors on November 10 and November 12, 2020.

The first panel features the 2020 Vine Awards shortlisted non-fiction writers – Naomi K. Lewis, Ayelet Tsabari, and Diana Wichtel – in conversation with juror Judy Batalion. Join us for an evening of engaging dialogue, as all four authors reflect on their personal journeys writing memoir, particularly when written through a Canadian Jewish lens.

The conversation has been transcribed for accessibility purposes. Please click here to view.

Vine Awards Jury Quotes: Non-Fiction

Naomi K. Lewis, Tiny Lights for Travellers (University of Alberta Press)
In this memoir, Lewis appears to be on a quest to retrace the actual route of her beloved Opa’s escape from German Controlled Europe, but along the way, traveling alone from Amsterdam to Lyon, unexpected family secrets are unearthed. In the best tradition of the memoir form, Lewis’s explorations take her well beyond her expectations, and she finds that her initial quest is a small part of a much larger understanding of herself and her Jewishness. – Vine Awards Jury

Ayelet Tsabari, The Art of Leaving (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd)
The Art of Leaving is an intelligent and sensuous coming-of-age memoir that sheds light on Mizrahi culture and identity. – Vine Awards Jury

Diana Wichtel, Driving to Treblinka (Heritage House Publishing)
A compelling, vivid and honest memoir and narrative about Diana Wichtel’s heartfelt search for the truth about her troubled father, a Holocaust survivor, who she lost touch with as a young teenager, and her journey to discover the harrowing details of his wartime experiences and the hardships he experienced in the years that followed in Canada. – Vine Awards Jury

About the Panelists

Naomi K. Lewis is the author of the novel Cricket in a Fist, the short story collection I Know Who You Remind Me Of, and the co-editor of the anthology Shy. Her memoir, Tiny Lights for Travellers, was a finalist for the 2019 Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction. Her journalism has been shortlisted for provincial and national magazine awards, and she has served as writer in residence at the University of New Brunswick and the Calgary Public Library. She resides in both Calgary and Kelowna.

Ayelet Tsabari’s debut story collection, The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. The book was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book, was nominated for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and has been published internationally to great acclaim. She is the recipient of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship and a graduate of both the Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph. Tsabari teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Education.

Diana Wichtel is an award-winning journalist and freelance writer. She holds a master of arts degree from the University of Auckland and is the recipient of a 2016 Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship. Her memoir, Driving to Treblinka, is a national bestseller in New Zealand and in 2018 won two of the country’s top book awards: the Royal Society Te Aparangi Award for General Non-fiction and the E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for General Non-Fiction. Diana was a feature writer and television critic at current affairs magazine the New Zealand Listener for 36 years. She lives in Auckland with her partner, journalist Chris Barton.

Judy Batalion is the author of the forthcoming The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos to be published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in April 2021. Her first book White Walls: A Memoir about Motherhood, Daughterhood and the Mess in Between was optioned by Warner Brothers for whom Judy is currently developing the TV show Cluttered. This book was also shortlisted for the Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature in 2017. Judy's essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vogue, The Forward and many other publications. Born and raised in Montreal, Judy now lives in New York City with her husband and three children.

To see the full 2020 Vine Awards Shortlist, click here. For info on the History Panel on November 12, click here. The Vine Awards winners will be announced this year at an online Awards Ceremony on November 18, 2020 on the Virtual J platform. To register, click here.

All 2020 Vine Awards shortlisted titles can be purchased from Ben McNally Books.

The Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature is a national awards program that honours both the best Canadian Jewish writers and non-Jewish Canadian authors who deal with Jewish subjects in Fiction, History, Non-Fiction, Young Adult/Children’s literature, and Poetry. Each winning author receives a prize of $10,000. The 2020 Jury – comprised of authors Judy Batalion, Allan Levine, and Shani Mootoo – reviewed 55 entries to the Fiction, History, Non-Fiction and Young Adult/Children’s categories.